Most business websites are full of images: team photos, project shots, product pictures, logos. They’re essential for making a site feel real. They’re also one of the most commonly neglected parts of SEO. Image SEO is quick to get right once you know what matters.
Handled badly, images make pages slow, give search engines nothing to go on and leave visitors using screen readers with a stream of “image, image, IMG_4032”. Handled well, they help pages load quickly, support what the page is about and can bring in visitors through image search.
None of this image SEO work needs a developer. It needs a simple routine you follow every time you upload something.
Start with the right image
Good image SEO starts before you optimise anything. Choose images that genuinely belong on the page. Real photos of your work, premises and people do far more for trust than stock photography, and they give Google original images rather than the same picture that appears on hundreds of other sites.
Place images near the text they relate to. A photo of a finished loft conversion sitting next to the paragraph describing loft conversions makes sense to both visitors and search engines. The same photo floating in a generic banner doesn’t say much.
Name your files properly
Search engines use a range of signals to understand images, and the file name is one small but easy one. More importantly, it’s a habit that keeps your media library organised.
- Describe the image in plain words, for example oak-kitchen-worktop-installation.jpg instead of IMG_4032.jpg.
- Use hyphens between words, not spaces or underscores.
- Keep it short and lower case. Four or five descriptive words is plenty.
- Rename before you upload. Changing file names afterwards can break links to the image elsewhere on the site.
Don’t turn file names into keyword lists. plumber-liverpool-cheap-plumber-best-plumber.jpg helps nobody.
Write useful alt text
Alt text is a short written description attached to an image. Screen readers read it aloud to people who can’t see the image, and it’s shown if the image fails to load. Google also uses it as a clue to what the image shows. Accessibility is the main reason to get it right, and it overlaps neatly with good image SEO.
How to write it
- Describe what matters in the image, in the context of the page. “Rear extension with bi-fold doors opening onto a patio” is useful. “Image of house” isn’t.
- Keep it concise. A sentence or less is usually right.
- Don’t start with “image of” or “picture of”. Screen readers already announce that it’s an image.
- Mention the location or service only if it’s genuinely relevant to what’s shown. “Completed driveway in Formby” is fine if it’s true. Stuffing every alt tag with your main keyword is not.
- Leave alt text empty for purely decorative images, such as background patterns or dividers, so screen readers skip them. Most website editors let you do this.
- For logos, use the business name. For images that contain text, such as a graphic with an offer, include that text in the alt text.
Write alt text for someone who can’t see the image. If it helps them understand the page, it’ll help search engines too.
Good alt text is part of making a site accessible. If accessibility obligations apply to your organisation, treat this as one piece of a wider picture and take proper advice where needed.
Get the size right
Oversized images are one of the most common reasons small business websites are slow, especially on phones. A photo straight from a modern phone or camera is often far larger than any website needs.
- Resize to the largest size it will actually be shown at. For most website images, somewhere between about 1,200 and 2,000 pixels wide is plenty for full-width images, and much smaller for thumbnails or team photos.
- Compress it. Free tools and plugins can reduce file size a lot with no visible loss in quality.
- Use a modern format where possible. WebP, and increasingly AVIF, usually produce smaller files than JPEG or PNG at similar quality. Many platforms and plugins convert automatically.
- Use the right format for the job. Photos suit JPEG or WebP. Logos and simple graphics often suit SVG or PNG.
- Let images below the first screen load lazily. Most platforms now do this by default. The main image at the top of the page usually shouldn’t be lazy-loaded, as it can delay what visitors see first.
- Set width and height so the page doesn’t jump around as images load. Most modern editors handle this for you.
Extra touches and a routine to follow
- Captions are read more than you’d think. Where it’s natural, a short caption adds context for people and search engines.
- Don’t put important text only inside images. Headings, prices and contact details should be real text on the page.
- Check your image sitemap if you rely on image search, for example as a retailer. Many SEO plugins include images in the sitemap automatically.
- Tidy your media library. Remove unused, oversized uploads so they don’t creep back onto pages.
An upload routine to follow every time
- Choose a real, relevant image.
- Resize and compress it.
- Rename the file descriptively.
- Upload, then add alt text, or mark it decorative.
- Place it near the related content and check the page on your phone.
It adds a minute per image. Across a whole site, that small image SEO habit adds up to faster pages and a more accessible experience.
Need a hand with image SEO?
If your site is already full of heavy, unlabelled images, a clean-up is often a quick win. Our technical SEO service covers image performance, and our accessibility and compliance team can review alt text as part of a wider accessibility check.
