Google Business Profile photo sizes: logo, cover and job photos

Photos are one of the few parts of a Google Business Profile that most owners can improve in an afternoon, and they affect both whether people call and how Google reads the listing. This post covers the sizes Google accepts, what to use for the logo and cover photo, and which job photos are worth uploading.

The numbers Google publishes

Google's own guidelines for Business Profile photos are:

• Format: JPG or PNG
• File size: between 10 KB and 5 MB
• Recommended resolution: 720 pixels tall by 720 pixels wide
• Minimum resolution: 250 by 250 pixels
• Quality: in focus and well lit, with no heavy filters or significant alterations

For video, Google allows clips up to 30 seconds long, up to 75 MB, at 720p or higher.

Photos from a modern phone are larger than 720 by 720, and that's fine. The recommended size is a floor, and Google resizes what you upload. What you want to avoid is a screenshot, a photo pulled off Facebook at low resolution, or an image under the 250 pixel minimum, which Google won't accept.

Logo

The logo shows as a small circle or square next to your business name in Search and Maps. Upload a square version of your logo on a plain background, at least 720 by 720. If your logo is wide, put it on a square canvas with padding rather than letting Google crop the ends off. Google notes that the logo is what helps customers recognize your business, so it should match what's on the truck and the website.

Cover photo

The cover photo is the large image at the top of your profile. Google says it represents your business, and it recommends the same 720 by 720 minimum, though the cover displays as a wide rectangle, so a landscape photo works better than a square one. A good cover for a contractor is a finished job with your truck or crew in the frame, in daylight, with no text on it. Google may choose a different photo to display first based on what people click, so don't count on the cover always being what shows.

Business photos that help a contractor

Google groups everything else under business photos. The ones that matter for a home service business:

• Exterior and vehicle photos. Your lettered truck, your shop front if you have one, and the equipment trailer. These confirm you're a real local business.
• Team photos. The owner and crew, in work clothes, at a job. Homeowners want to know who's coming to the door.
• Before and after job photos. The single most useful category for exterior cleaning, painting, roofing and landscaping. Shoot them from the same spot, in the same light.
• Work in progress. A tech at a panel, a crew on a roof, a paver patio half laid. These show the work being done, and they're hard to fake.

Upload a few new photos each month rather than fifty at once. A profile that keeps adding real job photos looks active to Google and to the homeowner scrolling through it. Photos go through a review and can take up to 24 to 48 hours to appear on Search and Maps.

What to leave out

• Stock photos. They violate the spirit of the guidelines and homeowners can tell.
• Photos with phone numbers, prices or promotional text on them.
• Screenshots of reviews or of your website.
• Heavily filtered or edited images.

Customers can add photos too

Anyone can upload a photo to your profile, and you can't delete a customer's photo yourself. You can flag one that breaks Google's policies. The practical defense is to keep uploading your own good photos so that yours are the ones people see first.

Photos are one of the five things we check in every free audit, along with categories, services, reviews and the pages on your site. If your profile is still showing three photos from 2019, that's an easy fix, and the rest of our Google Business Profile fixes are just as quick.