Should a small business use stock photos on its website?

Here is a photo you have seen many times. Four people in clean hard hats, smiling at a laptop on a building site. Or a woman with a headset, smiling at nobody. Or two hands shaking in front of a window. These are stock photos, bought or downloaded from an online library, and the same images appear on many different websites.

They are quick, they are cheap or free, and they look professional. So what is the problem? The truth is that a stock photo shows somebody else. When the visitor wants to see your team and your work, a picture of strangers answers the wrong question.

In this post we look at where stock photos fit, where only real photos will do, what the licence of a stock photo allows, and how to prepare any image following Google's own best practices.

What should the photos on a small business website do?

Photos on a service business website have two jobs. First, they show the visitor what you actually do: the finished kitchen, the clean carpet, the repaired roof. Second, they show who you are: the faces of the people who will come to the house or answer the phone.

Google's advice for Business Profile photos makes the same point. Its photo tips say a photo "should be in focus, well lit, and have no significant alterations or excessive use of filters or AI. In other words, the image should represent reality." For photos of work, Google recommends that you "Capture photos of your team providing different types of service to customers." And for team photos: "Show yourself and any staff to highlight your personalities and give potential clients a feel for what you're like."

A stock photo shows a kitchen somebody else built and a team your customer will never meet.

When is a stock photo acceptable?

Stock images have honest uses. A background behind a headline. A texture, such as wood grain or water. An idea that nobody can photograph, such as "saving time" on a blog post. A photo of a general place, such as a city skyline, when you have not taken one yourself.

The line is simple: a stock photo must never pretend to be yours. A stock picture of a team placed on your "Meet our team" section, or a stock picture of a renovated bathroom placed under "Our recent projects", tells the visitor something false. Visitors who recognise the image, or who later meet a different crew at the door, will remember that.

What does a stock photo licence allow?

Free stock images come with rules. Every stock site has its own licence, and you should read it before you use an image. Let us take one example. The Pexels licence says: "All photos and videos on Pexels are free to use." It also says: "Attribution is not required", and "You can modify the photos and videos from Pexels."

Then it lists what is not allowed. Among them: "Identifiable people may not appear in a bad light or in a way that is offensive." And: "Don't imply endorsement of your product by people or brands on the imagery." And: "Don't use the photos or videos as part of your trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name or service mark."

That second rule matters for a small business. A stock photo of a smiling person placed next to your service can easily read as that person recommending you. Paid stock libraries have their own licences with their own limits. Read the one that applies, and keep a note of where each image came from.

Can you use a photo you found on Google Images?

Please do not assume so. A photo that appears in a search belongs to whoever took it, or to whoever they gave the rights to. The US Copyright Office explains it plainly in its general questions page: "Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form". On registration it adds: "In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created."

So the absence of a copyright notice under a photo tells you nothing. The rules differ from country to country, and this post is general information for owners. For advice on a specific case, ask a lawyer. The safe approach is to use only three kinds of image: photos you took, photos someone took for you under a written agreement, and stock images whose licence you have read.

How do you take real photos that look good enough?

You do not need a professional photographer to start, although one is worth considering for the team portraits. A recent phone and some care are enough to start. Here is a practical approach for a service business.

Take photos during every job for a month, and choose the best later. Shoot in daylight whenever possible, with the light behind you. Hold the phone steady and keep the subject in the middle. For renovation or repair work, take a photo before you start and another from the same spot when you finish. For the team, take portraits in normal work clothes, against a plain wall, one person at a time.

Let us imagine a cleaner in Richmond who does this for one month. At the end, they have a folder of real rooms, real equipment and real team members. The best of them show the visitor something no stock library can.

One rule before posting: ask permission. A customer's face, house number or home interior should appear only with their agreement. The same goes for staff. Keep a short record of who agreed, and when.

How should you prepare an image for Google?

Whatever the source of a photo, Google's image best practices page gives clear advice on how to prepare it.

Start with the file name. Google says: "When possible, use filenames that are short, but descriptive. For example, my-new-black-kitten.jpg is better than IMG00023.JPG." A phone names your photo with a number. Rename it with words, such as kitchen-cabinets-repainted-burnaby.jpg.

Then the alt text, the short written description attached to an image. It is read aloud by screen readers for people who cannot see the screen, and Google reads it too. Google calls it "The most important attribute when it comes to providing more metadata for an image". Its example goes from "Bad" (no alt text) and "Bad" (a long list of keywords) to "Best": "Dalmatian puppy playing fetch". Google warns that filling alt text with keywords "results in a negative user experience and may cause your site to be seen as spam." The W3C, which writes the web's accessibility guidelines, adds that the text alternative "should convey the meaning or content that is displayed visually". We go deeper on this in our guide to image SEO and alt text.

Placement matters as well. Google advises: "Wherever possible, make sure images are placed near relevant text and on pages that are relevant to the image subject matter." A photo of a repaired roof belongs on the roof repair page, next to the words that describe the job.

Finally, the size of the file. Google notes that "images are often the largest contributor to overall page size, which can make pages slow and expensive to load." A photo straight from a phone is often larger than a web page needs. Resize it to the width it will appear on screen and save it in a modern format. Google Search supports "BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG, and AVIF". Ask whoever manages your site which format it uses. Google suggests testing your pages with PageSpeed Insights afterwards.

What about photos on your Google Business Profile?

The same real photos belong on your Business Profile. Google's tips suggest at least three photos of work and at least three team photos, and they list the technical standards: JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, with a recommended resolution of 720 by 720 pixels. Our post on what Google rewards in Business Profile photos explains how to keep adding them over time.

In what order should you replace stock photos?

1. List every image on your website, and mark each one as your own or stock.
2. Replace the stock photos that claim to show your team or your work first.
3. Keep stock images only for backgrounds and general ideas, and note the licence of each.
4. Rename every file with words, write alt text for each, and resize before uploading.
5. Add the best real photos to your Google Business Profile too.

How can Licheo help?

Licheo does the website, search and AI work that big companies pay whole teams for, for small businesses. If you would like a first look at your site, the free Get Found Check reads your homepage, your domain's public settings and your security certificate, and returns a grade in under 60 seconds.

Sources

1. Image SEO best practices, Google Search Central, accessed 29 September 2026.
2. Tips for business-specific photos on your Business Profile, Google Business Profile Help, Google, accessed 29 September 2026.
3. Informative Images, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, accessed 29 September 2026.
4. Free Stock Photo and Video License, Pexels, accessed 29 September 2026.
5. Copyright in General (FAQ), U.S. Copyright Office, accessed 29 September 2026.