Why this signal matters for Google
A photo of the result does not prove you did the work. Take two roofing pages. The first shows a clean new roof, shot from the sidewalk. The second shows the same roof in six frames: old shingles torn off, underlayment down, first course nailed, ridge vent in, cleanup, finished roof. Anyone can take the first picture, including in front of a competitor's job. Nobody can fake the series without being on that roof at every stage. That is what a process gallery does: it turns a claim ("we do this work") into something a reader can inspect frame by frame. The pictures have to be yours, taken on site: an original photo, not a stock image of an anonymous worker. Readers tell the two apart without trying: in its eyetracking research, the Nielsen Norman Group (2010) watched users ignore stock photos of generic people and spend 10% more time on portraits of real people than on the biographies next to them, even though the bios took up 316% more space.
Google pays human evaluators, and their handbook describes this exact kind of proof. They grade pages against the Quality Rater Guidelines, a document Google publishes and that you can read in full. Section 3.4 defines experience as having personally done or lived what the page talks about. Section 7.3 recognises everyday expertise: a baker showing how she builds a wedding cake does not need a diploma to be believed, she needs to show it. And section 3.3.1 tells evaluators not to take a site's word about itself. "Ten years of craftsmanship" is a claim. Ten photos of one table, from rough board to varnish, with the capture date still in the file, is a demonstration. The evaluator does not have to trust you. They look.
Three things separate a gallery that proves from an album that decorates. Order first: the photos follow the real chronology of the job, first step to last, because the sequence is what shows the method. A page that shuffles three jobs together tells no story. Captions next: each frame says what is shown, which step this is and why the step exists. "Vapour barrier before insulation, otherwise condensation rots the framing within five years" teaches the reader something and proves you know why you do it. Tight shots last: the hand on the tool, the joint up close, the part before and after the step. A wide shot of the workshop shows a place; a tight shot shows a gesture, and the gesture is you. This is also what sets the gallery apart from a before / after pair, which compares two states without showing the road between them: the two formats work together, one opens the page, the other proves it. On the pest control sites I audit, the "our work" tab almost always shows the treated house and never the work: no shot of the attic before treatment, of the equipment set up, or of the hand placing the device. The proof was on the technician's phone. It never reached the page.
On a sensitive topic, show the craft without exposing the person. When the process touches the reader's health, money or safety, Google files the page under YMYL, and section 3.4.1 of the QRG asks evaluators one more question: on this topic, is it lived experience or professional skill that should carry the page? A process gallery answers with the second: it shows skill while it is being exercised. A denturist can document a prosthesis from impression to polish without any patient being recognisable; the work is on display, not the person. An accountant can show a file review method with the figures blurred. For AI assistants the gallery counts in a different way. ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity read your captions, your file names and your alt text (the description of the image written in the code, read by machines and screen readers), not your pixels. Twelve images with no captions do not exist for them. The same twelve, each with a precise caption under its step, become a description of your process these tools can pick up and attribute to you.
The NeuroEEAT scoring grid (0-10)
Score what the gallery lets someone verify who has never set foot in your shop.
| Score | Description | Concrete indicators |
|---|---|---|
| 0-2 | Decorative album | Stock images or supplier visuals. No steps, no captions. You see a trade, not your work. |
| 3-4 | Result only | Your own photos, but only the finished product or the completed job. No way to tell who did it or how. |
| 5-6 | Steps without explanation | Several photos you took during the job, roughly in order, with no captions or just 'step 1, step 2'. The reader sees the road but learns nothing. |
| 7-8 | Process demonstrated | A complete series in real order, one caption per step explaining the gesture and its reason, tight shots on hands and details, capture date kept in the file (EXIF data, written by the camera at the moment of the shot). |
| 9-10 | Reference for the trade | All of the above, plus: several galleries on different cases, the person visible and named in the photos and linked to their author page, alt text filled in on every image, and a dated update whenever the method changes. |
How to audit it on your site
Open your 'our work' page or gallery and run these five checks, one at a time.
- 01
Search for your images elsewhere
Drop three of your photos into Google reverse image search. If they show up on other sites, they come from a stock library or a supplier and prove nothing about you. Only images found nowhere else count.
- 02
Count steps, not photos
For one job, how many distinct steps are visible? A finished result alone scores zero. Aim for at least four moments: the starting point, two key steps in the middle, the end. If every job has a single image, you have an album, not a process gallery.
- 03
Read each caption out loud
Does it say what is shown, which step this is and why the step exists? 'Photo 3' says nothing. 'Third primer coat, sanded between passes so the final lacquer holds' says everything. A caption that teaches nothing gets rewritten.
- 04
Check the dates inside the files
Download a photo from your live site, not from your hard drive, and open its properties. If the capture date is gone, your upload tool stripped the EXIF data. In that case, write the date into the caption.
- 05
Look at who is in the pictures
Can you see someone from your team, recognisable from one step to the next? Are they named somewhere on the page and linked to their author or team page? Anonymous hands prove a job happened; identified hands prove it was yours.
How to activate or improve it
From the first job shot on a phone to a series your peers use as a reference.
Photograph the next job, not the last one
- Pick a job that starts next week and decide in advance on the five moments to shoot: before, three key steps, after.
- Shoot with your phone, from the same spot for before and after, in tight shots for the middle steps.
- Publish the series on a page of your site, in order, with one caption sentence per image: what is shown and why.
- Rename the files before uploading: 'roof-underlayment-step-2.jpg' rather than 'IMG_4821.jpg'.
Turn every gallery into a lesson
- Add the reason behind each gesture to its caption: what would happen if you skipped the step. That is what proves skill.
- Fill in the alt text of every image with a precise description of the step; search engines and AI assistants read that text, not the picture.
- Check that EXIF data survives your upload; if not, note the capture date in the caption of the first image.
- Show the same person from step to step and name them on the page, linked to their bio or the team page.
- Link the gallery to the matching service page and, if one exists, to the customer review for the same job.
Build a series that becomes the reference
- Publish one gallery per common type of job, always in the same place on the site, so readers and search engines see the regularity.
- Document the hard cases too: the step that failed and was redone, the problem found halfway through. Competitors never show that.
- Add a short video or image sequence for the most technical step, with the still gallery as its backbone.
- When your method changes, update the gallery and date the change instead of leaving the old version unexplained.
- Offer your galleries to the makers of your materials and to trade schools: a process gallery cited by a supplier becomes proof of authority.
5 common mistakes to avoid
Sector specifics
Denturist or dental lab
Making a prosthesis documents beautifully in photos: impression, plaster model, setup, curing, polish. No patient needs to appear, and that is exactly what section 3.4.1 expects on a health topic: proof of skill, with no risk to the person. Caption each step with the quality check you performed, not with a promise about results.
Roofer, plumber, electrician
Your job site photos are already on your phone: you take them to protect yourself in a dispute. Published in order with captions, they work a second time. Add the town of the job to the first caption: the gallery also becomes proof of local roots, which helps in nearby searches.
Bakery, microbrewery, caterer
The process is your product: kneading, shaping, baking, brewing. A gallery of the full cycle, with resting times and temperatures in the captions, answers the question every customer has: is it really made here? Shoot one batch from start to finish rather than moments picked from six different days.
Workshop, print shop, agency
Your clients buy a method they never see. A gallery showing the production steps of a real order, with the client's consent and name, replaces ten paragraphs about 'our approach'. Link it to the case study for the same job: the gallery shows how, the case study shows why and with what result.
Signals to activate in parallel
A process gallery rarely stands alone. These signals reinforce it or grow out of it:
FAQ
How to document a process?
Decide on the moments to photograph before you start, usually five: the starting point, three key steps, the result. Shoot before and after from the same spot, and the middle steps up close. Publish them on your site in real order with one caption per image saying what is shown and why the step matters. Keep the capture date in the file or write it in the caption. Done that way, the series is both a work record and public proof that you did the job.
What are the 5 W's of documentation?
Who, what, when, where and why, and a good caption answers all five in one sentence. Who: the person doing the step, named somewhere on the page. What: the gesture or the part shown. When: the step number and the capture date. Where: the job site or the workshop. Why: what the step is for and what goes wrong without it. If your captions only cover 'what', they describe; once they cover 'why' and 'who', they prove.
What is an example of a process document?
On a website, the clearest example is a gallery of six to eight photos of one real job in chronological order, each with a caption explaining the step: a cabinetmaker's table from rough board to varnish, a roof from tear-off to ridge vent, a prosthesis from impression to polish. A written standard operating procedure is another kind of process document, meant for your team. The photo gallery is the one a stranger can verify, because it shows the process as it actually happened on a given day.
What is the best way to document a process?
For proving experience to readers, evaluators and AI tools, a dated photo series with explanatory captions beats a written procedure, a flowchart or a video alone. It is quick to produce with a phone, it can be checked frame by frame, and its captions give search engines and assistants text they can read. Use a flowchart when the process branches, and a short video for the single most technical step, but keep the still gallery as the backbone.
Do I need a professional photographer to document my process?
No, and it often backfires. A photographer comes for a day, stages the scene and produces images that look like advertising. Phone photos taken by the person doing the work, at the moment they do it, carry the details an evaluator and a reader recognise: the dust, the worn tool, the light of the job site. Save the photographer for the team portrait and the final product shot.
Case study
Before · a cabinetmaker's 'our work' page
After · one build gallery per piece
Scenario built to show what changes on the page. The values do not come from a real client and promise no ranking result · measure with your own pages.