Your Phone Photos Could Be Doing Hidden SEO Work

Every time you finish a job, you probably snap a quick photo. Maybe it goes on your Google Business Profile, perhaps Facebook, possibly nowhere at all. But here’s what most local business owners don’t realise: those photos contain invisible data that Google actually reads. And if you’re not paying attention to it, you’re leaving easy wins on the table.

Let me explain what I mean, and more importantly, what you can do about it starting today.

The invisible location data already in your photos

Every photo your phone takes can include something called EXIF metadata – essentially hidden information embedded in the image file. If you’ve got location services enabled for your camera, this includes the exact GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken.

Here’s why that matters: Google can read this data.

When you upload a photo to your Google Business Profile that was taken at a customer’s house in Birmingham, Google knows that image was captured in Birmingham. That’s a geographic signal linking your business to that location. Now multiply that across dozens of job photos over months and years. You’re building a web of location signals that tell Google exactly where you operate.

The beauty of this is it’s almost entirely automatic. Your phone does the work. You just need to make sure the setting is switched on – and many people have it turned off without realising.

For your Google Business Profile, GPS data is the win

When you upload images to your Google Business Profile, Google compresses and reprocesses them. Your original filename often gets changed internally, so spending time renaming photos before uploading to GBP isn’t where your effort should go.

The real value is in that embedded location data. A geo-tagged photo of a completed kitchen installation in Solihull tells Google something meaningful about where you work. A photo with no location data is just pixels.

This is genuinely low-effort, high-impact stuff. You’re not learning new skills or spending money. You’re just making sure your phone is set up correctly and then carrying on as normal – taking photos of your work like you probably already do.

For your website, it’s a different story

Here’s where things change. When you upload images to your website, most content management systems and image optimisation tools strip out that EXIF metadata during processing. Your GPS coordinates often don’t survive the upload.

So for website images, you need to be more deliberate. This is where filenames and alt text earn their keep.

Instead of uploading “IMG_4521.jpg”, rename it to something descriptive like “kitchen-renovation-solihull.jpg” before uploading. Google reads filenames as a signal for understanding what an image shows. Keep it readable, use hyphens between words, and include the location where it’s natural.

Alt text is your other opportunity. This is the short description you can add to images in your website’s media library – primarily an accessibility feature for screen readers, but also read by search engines. Write what you’d say if describing the photo to someone who couldn’t see it: “New composite front door installation in Redditch” tells both humans and Google exactly what they’re looking at.

Your jobs are your proof – document them properly

Every completed job is content waiting to happen. That new driveway, the rewired kitchen, the freshly landscaped garden – these aren’t just finished projects, they’re visual evidence that you do good work in specific areas.

Get into the habit of photographing your work consistently. For Google Business Profile uploads, the GPS data does the heavy lifting automatically. For your website, take an extra minute to rename files and write proper alt text before uploading.

This isn’t complicated once it becomes routine. But those small efforts compound into genuine local SEO signals over time.

How to check your phone is set up correctly

This takes two minutes and you only need to do it once.

On iPhone, open Settings, scroll down to Privacy & Security, tap Location Services, then scroll down to Camera and make sure it’s set to “While Using the App”. That’s it – your photos will now include GPS coordinates automatically.

On Android, open your Camera app, tap the settings cog, and look for “Location tags”, “Geo tags”, “GPS tags” or “Save location” – the wording varies by manufacturer. Make sure it’s switched on.

To check it’s working, take a photo and view its details. On iPhone, open the photo, swipe up, and you should see a map showing where it was taken. On Android, open the photo, tap the three dots for info or details, and look for location data.

If your recent photos don’t show location information, the setting was probably off. No problem – just switch it on now and every photo from here onwards will include it.

Your one thing to do this week

Check your phone’s camera settings today and make sure location tagging is switched on. Then photograph your next completed job and upload it to your Google Business Profile. That’s it. One properly geo-tagged image, doing invisible SEO work for you.

Most of your competitors aren’t doing this. Their photos are location-less and invisible to Google beyond the pixels. Yours don’t have to be.

Thanks for reading,
Ollie

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