Why You Should Never Use Stock Art
We have a chronic problem in our materials, and it’s not subtle.
It’s stock art.
You know exactly the species:
- Stick-figure crowds that look like they escaped from ClipArt rehab.
- Fake-smiling business people who have clearly never run an actual business.
- Random gradients someone tossed in because “the page needed something.”
Stock art isn’t just inauthentic; half the time it’s not even relevant. It’s visual filler. And despite calling it out in threads, updating training, and telling people loudly not to use it, stock art keeps sneaking back in like a raccoon raiding the dumpster behind Applebee’s.
But there’s a deeper issue. And it has nothing to do with design skills.
The real problem: No experience = no expertise
Stock art shows up when someone doesn’t actually understand what they’re trying to communicate.
It’s easier to paste a cute icon than it is to:
- Map out a funnel from a real campaign.
- Show the real metrics.
- Pull real screenshots.
- Explain the real logic behind the system.
And this is where we run headfirst into EEAT, specifically the first E: Experience.
Google rewards content grounded in firsthand proof. So do real users. When you throw in stock art, you’re broadcasting the opposite: “I don’t have anything real to show you.”
Nothing demolishes credibility faster.
Stock art = evidence of no actual doing
Here’s the pattern we see all the time:
We talk about performance benchmarks.
We break down funnels.
We show TikTok metrics.
We emphasize real examples, real screenshots, real campaigns.
Then someone uploads… a blue stick-figure holding hands with 11 of its closest stick-friends.
Why?
Because stock art gives the illusion of completion without demonstrating any experience.
And without real experience, you don’t have expertise. Without expertise, you can’t teach. That’s the whole point of Learn → Do → Teach. The order matters.
What belongs in our materials instead
Only things that reflect real work done by real practitioners:
- Authentic screenshots.
- Real campaigns.
- Real dashboards.
- Real funnels drawn from real data.
- Simple diagrams that match how the system actually works.
These aren’t decorations. They’re evidence.
Evidence of experience. Evidence of understanding. Evidence of actual EEAT.
A simple rule:
If you wouldn’t show it to a paying client, don’t put it in our training.
Why stock art hurts our brand
Let’s be blunt:
❌ It destroys authenticity.
People can smell generic content a mile away. It instantly lowers trust.
❌ It’s usually irrelevant.
Stock art rarely reinforces a concept. It’s just visual noise.
❌ It signals “I don’t understand this.”
This is the killer. When someone fills space instead of providing clarity, the entire training degrades.
❌ It hurts our EEAT.
Google prefers content with real images/video because it demonstrates firsthand experience.
Stock art does the exact opposite.
❌ It links us to low-quality sites.
Right-click search any stock image and you’ll find it on:
- crypto scams.
- random spam blogs.
- some guy’s homemade “entrepreneur motivation” poster from 2012.
Not the company we want to keep.
How we fix this, permanently
The answer isn’t “find better art.”
The answer is do real work, then document it.
If you’re contributing to training, you’re not a decorator. You’re a practitioner teaching from experience. That means:
- If you can’t explain the metric, don’t include an image
- If you don’t know where something belongs in the funnel, ask
- If you’re unsure whether an image fits, it doesn’t
- If you feel tempted to use stock art… shut the laptop, take a breath, and delete it
Our materials must come from actual experience — not Shutterstock and not AI-generated Web 1.5 clip art.
The bottom line
Stock art has no place in materials meant to build trust, teach systems, or prove competence.
Use real images.
Use real video.
Use real proofs of work.
Not because it “looks nicer.”
Because it satisfies the first E in EEAT — Experience.
Without that, nothing else matters.
Our brand deserves better.
Our training deserves better.
And the people learning from us deserve materials that are accurate, authentic, and grounded in real experience.
Let’s publish content so real, so credible, and so obviously practitioner-driven…
that nobody ever reaches for stock art again.