In short and in plain language
Good work often sits inside private homes. How can you show it without naming clients? This article looks at that.
A good example of your work names the trade, the job and the solution. Give the place only as a town. The client's name is not needed.
For a name, an address or people in a photo, you need consent. A short written release is often enough. The client can take it back at any time.
Made-up cases and fake reviews are a bad idea. They can cause legal trouble.
Without a release, detail photos and workshop pictures are often still fine. As a rule, that is enough for a good page. We build your website at a fixed price.
The most convincing work a trade business does is rarely public. The new bathroom sits on the first floor of a private house, the electrical installation disappears behind plaster, and the fitted kitchen stands in a flat whose owners have no interest in strangers looking at it online. Anyone who wants to show past work therefore faces a question that has nothing to do with design: how much may be shown, and at what point is permission required? This article describes how a project is anonymised so that it still proves something professionally, what a written release looks like that can be signed in two minutes, and what remains possible without any release at all.
Key takeaways
- A reference convinces through trade, starting point, scope, solution and location at municipality level. The client's name adds nothing professionally and is precisely the one element that would require permission.
- 72 percent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses see online customer reviews as a major opportunity to win work and build trust. References on a business's own website serve the same purpose, with more control over the presentation.
- Invented case studies, made-up customer quotes and staged before-and-after images are open to challenge under competition law and, in a catchment area of thirty kilometres, are usually exposed within weeks.
- A written release needs five details: which images, which purpose, which channels, whether the name is used, and that consent can be withdrawn at any time without giving reasons.
- Without any release, close-up shots with no location reference, workshop images, material sections and figures from completed projects remain possible. As a rule that is enough for a complete reference page.
Why the best work is rarely visible
An electrical contractor who has been refurbishing older buildings for twenty years often has no pictures. Not because nobody took any, but because the results sit inside other people's homes. The consumer unit hangs in the cellar of a terraced house, the new cabling disappears behind plaster, and the bathroom that three trades worked on for weeks belongs to a family who would rather not see their address online. That is where the gap opens up: the work a business values most is the work it is least free to show.
At the same time, having a website is no longer a distinguishing feature. 94 percent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses run their own website. When nearly every business in the area has a site, it is no longer the existence of the site that decides but what is written on it. Between two businesses with cleanly designed pages, proof usually decides: whoever shows that they have already solved the visitor's problem has the shorter route to an appointment. How such a site is structured overall is covered in the overview of our services.
On top of that comes an audience that looks more closely than it used to. 74 percent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses find that customers have become more critical. In practice, more critical means: three sites are laid side by side, reviews are cross-checked, people notice whether the images shown match the business described, and they quickly spot a stock photo. An empty reference page is awkward; an implausible one is considerably worse.
Two comfortable ways out of this bind exist, and both are expensive. The first is called references on request and moves the proof into a conversation that, without proof, often never happens. The second is bought imagery, and it becomes obvious the moment somebody finds the same shot on the site of a business in the next village. The remaining route is less comfortable and lasts longest: preparing your own projects so that they work without names and without addresses.
Someone else's property, someone else's home
What a reference has to achieve for the reader
Before clarifying what may be left out, the reverse question is worth asking: what is somebody actually looking for in a reference? As a rule not entertainment, but confirmation. Someone planning a heat pump in an older building is looking for the sentence "built in 1968, existing radiators kept, flow temperature reduced". Someone who needs an old installation inspected is looking for the case that looks like theirs. The reader compares their own situation with the one described and concludes from that whether the business can do it. Everything that does not support this comparison is decoration.
The client's name plays no part in that assessment. It says nothing about the work, it is as a rule meaningless to the reader, and it is precisely the one element of the description for which permission would be needed. The situation differs slightly for commercial clients: a business known locally can carry genuine weight as a name. But there too the rule holds without exception that no name goes on the page without a written release.
Trade and service
Which work was actually carried out, named in the language of the trade rather than in catch-all terms such as refurbishment or modernisation.
Starting point
The condition before work began: year of construction, previous damage, installations grown over time, requirements from an inspection. This is where readers recognise their own case.
Scope
Orders of magnitude in figures that identify nobody: square metres, number of circuits, kilowatts, linear metres, number of rooms.
Approach taken
The decision that made the difference, with the reasoning. This is where a professional reference parts company with a picture gallery.
Duration and sequence
How long the work took and whether the building stayed occupied or in production throughout. For many clients this is the real question.
Location at municipality level
Municipality or district is enough to demonstrate proximity. Street and house number contribute nothing to that and create a problem instead.
None of these six details names a person. They describe building work, not a human being, and that is exactly why they carry a reference page even when nobody wants to give their name. What remains once name, address and face are removed is no less convincing, only less personal. For the decision about whom to call, the personal part is the smaller one anyway.
Five details carry an anonymised project card
In practice a fixed template has proven itself that is quick to fill in per project and appears on the page as a short card (project experience). The advantage of a template is not the design but the comparability: describing six projects to the same pattern creates an impression of method that flowing text never achieves. And the business does not have to work out from scratch on every project what belongs in and what does not.
Name the trade
Start with the service, not the property: electrical installation in an existing building, a bathroom with the residents staying in, a pitched roof after storm damage. One sentence concrete enough that a layperson understands it and a professional does not smile at it.
Describe the starting point
Two or three sentences on the condition before work began: year of construction, existing equipment, defects found, requirements from an inspection. Deliberately without an address and without any reference to the residents, because the subject is the building, not the family inside it.
Scope in figures
State orders of magnitude that place the effort: square metres of area, number of circuits, metres of pipework, kilowatts of output, duration in working days. Figures without names identify nobody and make the reference easy to follow.
Solution and decision
The most important part and the one most often missing: why was it done this way and not another? Which alternative was rejected, which compromise was necessary? Explaining that demonstrates judgement, not merely work carried out.
Location at municipality level
Finally the geographic placing: municipality, joint municipality or district. That is enough to demonstrate proximity and cannot be traced back to a single house as long as the remaining details stay general.
Start with the service, not the property: electrical installation in an existing building, a bathroom with the residents staying in, a pitched roof after storm damage. One sentence concrete enough that a layperson understands it and a professional does not smile at it.
Two or three sentences on the condition before work began: year of construction, existing equipment, defects found, requirements from an inspection. Deliberately without an address and without any reference to the residents, because the subject is the building, not the family inside it.
State orders of magnitude that place the effort: square metres of area, number of circuits, metres of pipework, kilowatts of output, duration in working days. Figures without names identify nobody and make the reference easy to follow.
The most important part and the one most often missing: why was it done this way and not another? Which alternative was rejected, which compromise was necessary? Explaining that demonstrates judgement, not merely work carried out.
Finally the geographic placing: municipality, joint municipality or district. That is enough to demonstrate proximity and cannot be traced back to a single house as long as the remaining details stay general.
Anyone who fills in these five points has a reference that works without a single photograph. That is more than a stopgap. On a phone, where the majority of visitors arrive, a short project card is often read in full while a gallery is merely swiped through. Images complement the card; they do not replace it. Which shots can be produced with your own phone, and what to watch out for, is covered in the notes on photos for trade websites.
The rule of thumb
Location: municipality instead of street and number
Proximity is a selling point in the trades, which is why hardly any business wants to drop the location. Nor does it have to. The only question is the resolution. "Detached house in Söhlde" shows proximity and identifies nobody. "Detached house at 14 Example Street" shows exactly the same proximity and identifies one particular house with particular residents. The gain in insight for the reader is identical in both cases; the risk is not.
Caution is needed in small places. In a village of four hundred inhabitants, the combination of municipality, year of construction and trade can already be enough to identify the house, at the latest for the neighbours. In such cases it helps to move up a level: the joint municipality instead of the village, the district instead of the parish. Or one of the remaining details is dropped, the year of construction for instance. The reference loses less by that than many people fear.
Do not confuse location pages with references
Why invented cases and customer quotes are out
There is an obvious shortcut: if nobody is named anyway, the project could simply be invented. A suitable case, a friendly customer quote with a made-up first name and a town, and the reference page is done. That shortcut is a mistake for three reasons, and the legal one is only one of them.
First, an invented customer quote misleads about a material characteristic of the service. Reviews and recommendations are expressly treated as a commercial practice in competition law; anyone showing recommendations has to be able to establish that they come from genuine customers. It is open to challenge regardless of whether anyone suffers concrete harm. Second, exposure in a catchment area of thirty kilometres is a matter of weeks: a site manager, a supplier or a competitor reads the case and knows it does not exist. Third, the business forfeits precisely what the page was meant to build.
Doing without invention is no competitive disadvantage. 72 percent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses see online customer reviews as a major opportunity to win new work and build trust, and 40 percent (Bitkom 2025) are listed on a review platform. Genuine feedback is therefore already there or easy to obtain. It only needs collecting rather than replacing. Asking for a review at handover costs one sentence and delivers something no invention can: something a reader can check.
A reference nobody can verify is not a reference. It is a claim with a caption.
The same rule applies to images as to text. A before-and-after where before and after come from two different properties is staged and therefore misleading. So is a photograph showing a result the business never produced. Anyone buying in imagery because their own shots are missing should use it where it stays visibly decorative and generic, never as evidence for a particular piece of work.
Photos: what stays possible without a release
Photos are where most reference projects get stuck, and at the same time the part where a few rules save the most. What matters is the distinction between a shot that shows an object and a shot that shows a person or an address. The framing decides: the same building site yields an unproblematic and a problematic picture, depending on where the camera points.
In practice that means moving closer. The close-up of the cleanly finished tile edge, the labelled consumer unit without its surroundings, the seam at the roof abutment, the routed mortise in the workshop. Such shots show quality more clearly than a wide view of the house and as a rule contain nothing that identifies anyone. As a side effect they are professionally more interesting, because a tradesperson can see how carefully the work was done and a layperson at least notices the difference from an arbitrary catalogue image.
| Type of shot | Without a written release | With a written release |
|---|---|---|
| Close-up of the work, no location reference | As a rule unproblematic | Unproblematic |
| Interior of an occupied private home | Only without personal belongings, photos and name plates | Also as a room view with furnishings |
| Facade with house number, letterbox, doorbell plate | Do not publish, or obscure those details | Publication within the agreed scope |
| Residents, relatives or visitors in the picture | Do not publish | Publication within the agreed scope |
| Your own staff in the picture | Only with their agreement, revocable at any time | Within the agreed scope, revocable at any time |
| Workshop, your own premises, your own vehicle | Unproblematic | Unproblematic |
The table is a working aid, not legal advice. It reflects how imagery can be sorted in practice in website projects for trade businesses (project experience). Where a case remains unclear, for instance with a listed building, with commercial premises subject to security requirements, or with aerial shots, it belongs in a professional review before publication rather than afterwards.
The written release: half a page is enough
Anyone who wants to name the client, show the facade or depict people needs the consent of the person concerned, and needs to be able to evidence it. In practice that means in writing, with a date and a signature, or in text form by email where the reply is kept. A verbal "yes, go ahead" on site is well meant but worthless in a dispute, because eighteen months later nobody remembers what it referred to.
- Which images and details are released, named concretely and not as a blanket clause covering everything that may ever be produced.
- What they may be used for: website, business profile, printed material, social networks. Each channel ticked separately.
- Whether the name is used, whether only the location appears, or whether publication stays entirely anonymous.
- How long the release applies and that it can be withdrawn at any time without reasons and without disadvantage.
- Who in the business is the contact for a withdrawal, with a name and a route that will still be reachable in two years.
- Date, signature and a copy for the other side, so that both parties hold the same sheet.
The sheet needs no more than that. Half a page in plain language is signed more readily than two pages of legal prose and serves the same purpose. What matters is that withdrawal actually works: if somebody calls after eighteen months and wants the pictures removed, they have to disappear from the site within a few days, likewise from the business profile and, as far as possible, from printed material. Anyone who hands over maintenance anyway has a fixed contact for this; that is the practical side of ongoing support, described in the services overview.
Handover is the right moment
What remains when nobody agrees
Some clients say no, and some are not asked at all for good reasons, for instance after a project with friction. Even then a complete reference page remains possible; it simply looks different. The following building blocks require no third-party consent whatsoever, because they concern only the property, premises and services of the business itself.
- Shots from your own workshop or premises: prefabrication, cutting, material store, machines in use.
- Close-ups with no location reference, taken on site but framed so that neither the address nor any person is identifiable.
- Sample pieces, material sections and trial assemblies produced specifically for presentation.
- Figures and descriptions from completed projects in anonymised form, entirely without pictures.
- Your own vehicles, workwear and the team, with the agreement of the staff shown.
- The qualifications of the business: master craftsman certificate, entry in the register of trades, completed training and manufacturer courses.
These building blocks are enough for a page that achieves more than a gallery of other people's houses. Add six to ten anonymised project cards and a picture of the business emerges that a prospective client grasps in two minutes. What such a page can look like in terms of content is shown on the references page, which manages without third-party company names for the very same reason.
Data protection: when personal data is involved
The General Data Protection Regulation applies as soon as information relates to an identified or identifiable natural person. For references that means: a photograph in which a person is recognisable is processing of personal data. So is a name together with a location. The picture of a facade with a house number is at least where the home address of a particular person can be derived from it. The close-up of a tile edge is not.
The practical consequence is manageable. Where personal data is involved, a legal basis is required, and for advertising and public presentation that is as a rule the consent of the person concerned: freely given, for a specified purpose, and revocable at any time. Where no personal data is involved, the question falls away entirely. That is precisely why anonymising is not only consideration towards the client but also the simpler option: what is not personal data does not have to be justified.
Factual, but not legal advice
How the reference page is structured
A reference page is not a picture gallery with captions but a selection. Six to ten projects are enough; more is rarely read and turns maintenance into a burden. More important than the number is the spread: every trade the business offers should be represented by at least one project, and the range from the small repair to the large conversion should be visible. Otherwise the impression arises that the business only does large projects, and the small job calls somebody else.
For findability it is worth giving each project its own heading containing the trade and the starting point rather than calling it "Project 3". Anyone adding projects regularly collects, over the years, the wordings people actually search for: heat pump in an older building, replacing a consumer unit, sealing a flat roof. For businesses with a tight service radius this side effect is worth more than any additional general service page.
- Collect projects: plan five minutes for notes and two or three close-up photos at every handover.
- Fill in the template: trade, starting point, scope, solution, location at municipality level.
- Anonymise: check for and remove names, addresses, house numbers, number plates and personal belongings in the pictures.
- Clarify the release where more is to be shown than the template allows, in writing and with a note on withdrawal.
- Publish, and record internally which project is online under which release.
- Review twice a year: replace outdated projects, act on withdrawals, add new trades.
The last point is skipped most often and is at the same time the cheapest. A reference page whose most recent project is four years old suggests a business where nothing has happened for four years. Two dates in the calendar are enough to prevent that, and each takes half an hour.
Effort, maintenance and cost
The effort sits almost entirely with the business, not with the website. Short notes per project, a few photos from a phone, a regular fixed slot to transfer them. Coupled to handover it is barely noticeable; postponed, it leaves you in front of empty fields later, remembering neither the year of construction nor why the cabling was routed differently back then.
On the site itself the reference structure is part of the scope. A website at a fixed price starts at 1,490 euros net, a relaunch of an existing site at 2,900 euros net. Ongoing support including maintenance of new projects starts at 49 euros per month, cancellable monthly, no minimum term; hosting in Germany starts at 15 euros per month, cancellable monthly, no minimum term. What is included at which scope is set out in the pricing overview; for a specific case the shortest route is the contact form.
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