Your website photos: where to get them, which to use and in what order
By GuestChat Team ·
On a vacation rental website, photos do ninety percent of the work. Visitors don't read until the photos have won them over. The good news is that you almost never need to upload anything again: most likely you already have them in the dashboard.
Four ways to get a photo
Every time you choose a photo in My website, a box opens with tabs:
- Free photos: a bank of free-to-use photos, commercial use included, with no need to credit anyone. You search with words like beach, kitchen or terrace. Great for the cover or the gallery of the area.
- Upload mine: you drag the photo in or pick it from your computer or phone.
- My places or This place: you reuse the ones you already uploaded when you added your apartments. This is the one people use most.
- From your listing: if the property is linked to an Airbnb listing, it brings in its photos. Booking.com doesn't let anyone read its photos: those live only in its extranet.
The property photos are the same ones as in the dashboard
This matters: in the Places step, each apartment's photos are not a copy made for the website. They are the property's own photos. Whatever you change there also changes in its property profile in the dashboard, and the other way around. That way you never end up with two versions that don't match.
The first photo rules
The first photo of each property is its cover: the one that appears on the card and when someone shares the link. That's why it has its own tag and can be moved. Drag a photo to reorder it, or use the arrows on your phone.
What to put first: the brightest photo of the main space, usually the living room or the view. Not the outside of the building, unless the building itself is the reason for the trip.
Your business cover and gallery
On top of each apartment's photos:
- The website's cover photo takes several more photos; with more than one, they rotate.
- The gallery takes up to 24. With a lot more than that, the page is slow to open on a phone.
- For the business gallery, photos of the area, the beach or the city work better than photos of one specific property.
The photos you shouldn't publish
The picker also shows the property's Entrance & access or Parking photos, and it warns you: anything you put on your website can be seen by anyone. Only use them if they don't reveal how to get in. A photo of the building door with the key box, or of the lock keypad, is information for the guest, not for the internet.
Checklist
- At least five good photos per property, with the best one first.
- All landscape, and with natural light if possible.
- No photos of access, codes or keys on the website.
- A gallery with the area, not more photos of the same living room.
- Check the mobile preview: that's where most people see it.
Common mistakes
- Uploading again the photos you already had on the property.
- Leaving a dark photo as the cover because it was the first one you uploaded.
- Filling the gallery with thirty photos and ending up with a slow website on mobile.