How to Improve Your Visual Content Score

Visual Content is weighted at 20% in Neerzy's free GBP audit — the third-highest category after Completeness and Reviews & Reputation. It's also one of the fastest to move, since it depends entirely on you uploading photos, not on customer behavior.

1. What This Score Measures

• Total photo count, benchmarked against 10+, 50+, and 100+ thresholds
• Recency of uploads — whether photos have been added in the last 30 days
• Logo and cover photo quality
• Photo diversity — interior, exterior, and team photos, not just one type repeated
• Video content presence

2. Why Google Cares

3. Common Reasons for a Low Score

• Photos were uploaded once, when the profile was created, and never touched again — the single most common pattern among plumbing businesses.
• All photos are the same type — usually just a logo and a truck wrap, with no actual job-site or team photos.
• No video at all, even though video is checked as its own sub-signal and most competitors haven't added any either.
• Photo count sits in the 10–30 range, clearing the lowest threshold but falling well short of the 50+ and 100+ benchmarks that score higher.

4. Real Examples

A plumbing company with 12 photos, no video, and no uploads in the last six months will typically score in the 20–40 range on this category — clearing the "has photos" bar but falling short on every other sub-metric. A business adding 4–6 fresh job photos a week, with a mix of completed work, team shots, and at least one video, will typically reach the 80–100 range within two to three months of consistent uploading.

5. Priority Checklist

How This Fits Your Overall Audit Score

At 20% weight, Visual Content moves your overall score less than Completeness or Reviews individually, but it's often the fastest category to fix in bulk — a single afternoon spent uploading a real photo backlog can shift this category more in one sitting than any other category allows.

Common Questions

Do stock photos count toward my photo score?
No — the audit is designed to reward real, business-specific photos, and stock or generic imagery doesn't build the same trust with actual customers browsing your profile either.

How often do I need to upload new photos to keep this score up?
Weekly is the realistic target for busy plumbing businesses — one or two photos from each completed job maintains both the count and the recency sub-metrics without requiring a dedicated photography session.

Does photo quality matter, or just quantity?
Both are checked separately — a large volume of blurry, poorly lit photos won't score as well as a smaller set of clear, well-composed ones, though quantity still matters on its own.

Is video really necessary, or just a bonus?
It's checked as its own sub-signal, so it does contribute — but it's a smaller factor than photo volume and recency, so prioritize consistent photo uploads first if you have to choose.

6. Common Mistakes

• Only uploading exterior or logo shots — diversity is a specific sub-check, and a profile heavy on one photo type scores lower than a varied one.

7. When to Re-Run the Audit

Photo-based improvements are among the fastest to register — re-run the audit within a day or two of a significant upload batch to see the count and recency sub-scores move.

8. Related Guides

• Understanding Your Audit Score
• How to Improve Your Overall Audit Score
• Section 5 of the full plumbing SEO guide — Photos and Videos subsections

9. What Improvement Should You Expect?