Getting found on Google
The Photo You Don't Have: What to Use Instead
Decide if your business shows itself or explains itself: a real daylight phone photo, or an illustration, never a stock photo.
You don't have a photographer. You've got your phone, the counter, maybe a delivery van with a logo that's a little crooked. You're building the website and you hit the photo box, and that's where you stop: do you use what you have, even if it's just okay, or look for something nicer online, or leave that spot blank?
It's not a question of taste. It's a question of what actually works better for you, depending on what you sell.
What really breaks trust isn't the amateur photo
A photo taken with your phone, in the light you get on a Tuesday morning, doesn't scare anyone off. What does scare people off is something else: a dark photo taken at night with flash, a background cluttered with boxes and cables, or, worst of all, a perfect stock photo that isn't your shop or your product.
A customer will forgive the phone photo. They won't forgive the lie, even a small one.
- It's your product or your place, exactly, not a nicer version of something similar
- With daylight and three tries, you have it in a minute
- It ages well: change your window display, change the photo, no one else involved
- Works when the business has nothing physical to show: a bookkeeper, an online class, a consultation
- Doesn't promise a look the customer won't find when they show up
- Looks more polished if the rest of the site already takes care with design and type
Which one to choose: If you sell something people can see, a dish, a haircut, a remodel, use the real photo, even if it's from your phone and a little crooked. If you sell something people can't see, bookkeeping, therapy, a class over video call, use a simple illustration or no graphic there at all. Making up a photo of people smiling in an office that isn't yours is worse than leaving the spot blank.
That said, if you decide yes, your business is worth showing, the phone photo has its own craft. It's not just point and shoot.
- 1Daylight, never yellow light at night
Get near a window or step outside. Bulb light tints everything orange and flash flattens the product; daylight is the only light you don't need to fix afterward. - 2One subject, a clean background
Move away what doesn't sell: the register, the charger cord, the shopping bag. If the background is a wall or a clear table, the product is the only thing the customer looks at. - 3Three shots, keep one
Take a step to the left, get closer, try a third one a bit higher. Check all three on a bigger screen, not just your phone, and toss the other two without hesitation. - 4Crop in, don't shrink
If the product looks small in the middle of the photo, crop it so it fills almost the whole frame. A close, cropped photo looks more professional than the same photo left small and full.
Notice something: that caption doesn't sell with adjectives, "delicious," "homemade", it sells with a fact only you can give: when it comes out of the oven, how long the wait is. The real photo and the exact text hold each other up; a stock photo with that same caption would look ridiculous, because the customer would expect to see that cheesecake on a Tuesday and wouldn't.
This is part of the same idea covered in What Your Website Should Say on Day One: what holds up a new business isn't the prettiest storefront, it's the truest one.
- Decided whether your business shows itself (real photo) or explains itself (illustration or nothing)
- If it shows: a phone photo in daylight, clean background, cropped in close, with its exact caption
- If it explains: a simple illustration or no graphic at all, never a stock photo with people who aren't part of your business
- Ruled out for good: the dark photo, the flash-at-night shot, and the one that promises a look the customer won't find
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