Field guide · November 10, 2026

GBP Photos: What Electricians Should Actually Upload

Upload real photos of finished work, your truck, and your team, in JPG or PNG between 10 KB and 5 MB, at 720 by 720 pixels or better. Google asks for at least three exterior, three interior, and three at-work photos, and profiles with more than 100 images got 520 percent more calls in BrightLocal's study of 45,264 profiles.

Open three electrician profiles in the map pack and look at their photos. One has a logo. One has a stock photo of a lightbulb. One has nothing at all. The homeowner comparing them is not reading your description first. They are looking at the pictures, and the pictures are telling them whether a real person with real tools will show up.

Google's own photo rules are specific, and they are not hard to meet. Photos must be JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, in focus and well lit, with no heavy filters. The recommended size is 720 by 720 pixels, and the minimum is 250 by 250. Videos can run up to 30 seconds and 75 MB, at 720p or higher. The nearest thing Google publishes to a quantity guideline is a floor: at least three exterior photos, three interior, and three of work being carried out.

Photos do not rank you. They convert the click

Say this plainly, because most GBP advice gets it backwards: Google does not name photos as a local ranking factor. Its ranking guidance names three things, relevance, distance, and prominence, and photos are not one of them. BrightLocal's January 2026 summary of the local ranking factors survey lists the top 15 local pack factors, and no photo factor appears in any of them. Anyone selling photo uploads as a ranking tactic is guessing.

Photos are a conversion lever, and the evidence there is strong. BrightLocal's Google My Business Insights study, built on 45,264 profiles across the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK, found profiles with more than 100 images received 520 percent more calls and 2,717 percent more direction requests than the average profile. The median profile in that study had just 11 photos. The study itself cautions that businesses with lots of images may simply be better at Google in general, so treat the direction as useful and the decimal points as history. The mechanism is still clear: a homeowner who sees a clean labeled panel after an upgrade trusts the electrician behind it.

What to shoot, and what to skip

Shoot the work, not the branding. A clean labeled panel after an upgrade, an EV charger on a garage wall with neat conduit, a before-and-after of a messy job, your truck and team in uniform. Google's tips for service businesses come down to two kinds that matter: photos at work, at least three showing the services you offer, and team photos, at least three of you and your staff, so homeowners get a feel for who will show up.

Skip stock photos, photos with customer faces or house numbers, and photos with text baked over them. Skip geotagging, too: Google strips location metadata on upload, and Sterling Sky tested it in January 2024 and found it made town-name searches worse, not better. Ten solid recent photos are worth more than fifty average ones, and two or three new ones a month signal an active business in a way a stale profile never will.

The monthly habit that keeps it working

Put photo duty on the job, not on the marketing calendar. After a panel upgrade or an EV install, take three photos before you pack up: the finished work, the label or breaker detail, and the space around it, clean. Upload them the same day, while the job is fresh, and delete nothing. A profile that gains two or three real photos a month looks alive to a homeowner comparing it against a competitor whose last upload was two years ago.

Check the profile the way a customer does, once a month, from a phone. If the first photo a homeowner sees is a blurry logo, fix it that day. The photos are the cheapest trust signal on the profile, and they are the one most electricians leave empty.

Frequently asked questions

Do Google Business Profile photos help rankings?

No, not directly. Google names relevance, distance, and prominence as its ranking factors, and photos are not among them. Photos are a conversion lever: they decide whether a homeowner who already found your profile calls you or the next electrician in the pack.

What size should GBP photos be?

JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, in focus and well lit, with no heavy filters. Google recommends 720 by 720 pixels and requires at least 250 by 250. Videos can be up to 30 seconds and 75 MB, at 720p or higher.

How many photos should an electrician upload?

Google's floor is at least three exterior, three interior, and three of work being carried out. BrightLocal's study of 45,264 profiles found the median profile had just 11 photos, while profiles with more than 100 images got far more calls. Aim for a steady flow of real job photos, two or three a month, rather than a one-time dump.

Should I geotag my GBP photos?

No. Google strips location metadata on upload, so there is nothing left to read, and Sterling Sky's January 2024 test found geotagged images made town-name searches worse. Shoot real work in real places and let the photos speak for themselves.