How to Optimize Images for SEO [Image SEO Beginner’s Guide]

Images play a crucial role in enhancing a website’s visual appeal and providing valuable information to users.

However, many website owners overlook the importance of optimizing images for search engines.

In this beginner’s guide to image SEO, we will explore how to optimize images for SEO rankings and a positive user experience.

What Is Image SEO?

Image SEO is the process of optimizing images on a website to improve their visibility and rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs).

It involves using various techniques to make images more accessible to search engines, allowing them to understand and serve your images for relevant queries.

Why it’s important: Search engines can’t “see” images like you and me. They rely on textual clues to decipher an image’s content, which is where image SEO comes into play.

Image SEO uses text elements to communicate an image’s content to search engines.

Where Can Images Appear in Google?

Images can appear in various areas of Google.

Here are some of the most common:

Google Images

Google Images is a popular search engine that allows users to discover visual content relevant to their search queries. Optimizing images for Google Images can drive traffic to your website, considering how there are over 1 billion searches on it every day.

Google Image Pack

The Google Image Pack is a collection of images displayed at the top of traditional search results. It provides users with quick access to images related to their query.

Google Lens

Google Lens is a visual search that allows users to search for information using images rather than text.

With this tool, you can drag an image, upload a file, or paste an image link.

Google Lens will fetch and serve visually similar images on the right.

Rich Snippets in Traditional Search

Images can also appear as rich snippets in traditional search results.

Rich snippets are enhanced search results that have additional features beyond standard text.

Images can be featured for various types of content, such as recipes, products, and articles.

According to SEO statistics, rich snippets have significantly higher clickthrough rates than standard listings. This makes them valuable for website owners looking to increase organic traffic.

Why Are Images Important for the User Experience?

In addition to improving your website’s visibility in search engines, images play a vital role in the user experience.

Images help:

• Break up text
• Make content more engaging
• Provide visual context to users

In turn, images can boost user signals, which search engines use to assess the quality of your content.

If search engines see that users engage with your content (using metrics like time on page and bounce rates), they may reward your site with higher rankings.

Now that you understand how image SEO works, let’s learn how to do it.

How to Optimize Images for SEO and Users

1. Perform Keyword Research

Before adding images to your website, conduct keyword research to discover relevant keywords.

This step is critical for making your image optimizations down the line, such as naming the file, writing alt text, and creating title tags.

When selecting a keyword research tool, look for software that’s user-friendly, helps you find easy keywords, and is within your budget.

LowFruits is the best keyword research and SERP analysis tool for small business owners. It helps you uncover low-competition keywords that are easy to rank for.

To get started, enter a seed keyword into the KWFinder.

For our example, I’ll use the seed keyword “chinese wisteria.”

You’ll get a report that looks like this:

What’s unique about LowFruits keyword reports is that you get the following exclusive metrics:

1. SERP Difficulty Score (SD): The LowFruits metric for keyword difficulty. It’s on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being the easiest and 3 the hardest.
2. Weak Spots: Low-authority domains ranking in the top 10 search results for that keyword. These are competitors that are easy to outrank.

By paying attention to these metrics and the search volume, you can discover and prioritize easy keywords with high-ranking potential.

This means you’ll focus your content efforts on areas with the most opportunity — and that you can actually for.

Once you’ve found a focus keyword for your web page, keep it in mind for all your image optimizations.

2. Find a High-Quality Image

Now that you have a target keyword, it’s time to find an appropriate image.

Opt for high-quality, visually appealing images that are relevant to your content.

This article shows you how to find free images for your website.

It’s also important to note that images don’t always have to be photos.

You can also use the following visuals to break up text:

• Screenshots are great for tutorials and examples.
• Graphs and charts can showcase data metrics.
• Logos establish brand awareness and identity.
• Graphic designs can illustrate abstract themes.

3. Choose the Right Image Format

Select the appropriate image format (JPEG, PNG, GIF) based on the type of image and its purpose on the website. Consider factors like image quality, transparency, and file size when choosing the format.

Each format has a specific purpose. Some of the most common include:

• JPG / JPEG: good for graphics with many shades of colors
• PNG: best when you want high quality and size isn’t a concern
• SVG: good for logos because you can resize without losing quality
• GIF: animations or moving graphics

4. Compress the Image File Size

Page experience is one of the most important Google ranking factors. A primary component of a positive page experience is fast loading times.

Large image files can slow down your site. That’s why you should compress images before uploading them to your content management system (CMS).

Compressing image files can improve page loading speed and your overall site performance. Use tools like Photoshop or online image compressors to reduce file sizes without compromising image quality.

Personally, I like Compress JPEG because it’s free, easy to use, and allows you to compress PNG, GIF, and PDF files, too.

5. Use a Keyword-Optimized Image File Name

Now, we’re at the more “classical” image optimizations. The next few items are what most people think of when they consider how to optimize images for search engines.

First up, we have image file names.

Golden Rule #1: You should include your focus keyword in your image file name (assuming it’s relevant).

Golden Rule #2: Make it descriptive yet concise. There’s no need to use a super long file name.

Let’s look at an example using our “chinese wisteria” keyword from earlier. We’ll name the following image:

Good Image File Name: chinese-wisteria.jpg

Bad Image File Name: IMG0683251.jpg (not descriptive)

It’s not rocket science, but it does make a difference!

Image file name optimizations are one of the easiest to make — don’t overlook them.

6. Write Descriptive Image Alt Text

Next up is image alt text.

Alt text, or alternative text, describes an image. It resides within a web page’s HTML code and helps search engines understand an image’s content.

Screen readers also use alt tags to describe an image to visually impaired users.

Here’s an example of what it looks like in HTML:

<img src=”chinese-wisteria.jpeg” alt=”Chinese wisteria tree in full bloom.” />

Here are a few golden rules for writing image alt text:

Golden Rule #1: Be descriptive.

Golden Rule #2: Include your keyword.

Golden Rule #3: Write a complete sentence.

I find it most helpful to think of how a visually impaired user would hear the alt text. This approach keeps your writing natural, fluid, and concise.

It also ensures that you’re putting people first, and search engines second.

7. Create SEO-Friendly Image Titles

Image titles appear when users hover or click on an image.

Try it out with the image below. Hover your mouse over the image and see the text that appears.

You should have seen the following: “Up-close Shot of Chinese Wisteria Flowers”

In the above example, the image title is somewhat of an accessory (and an image SEO best practice). However, for other images like graphs or charts, image title tags can provide users with additional context that clarifies its purpose.

8. Include Image Captions When Appropriate

Like title tags, captions can offer additional context or information about an image.

However, unlike titles, image captions appear directly below the image and don’t require the user to click or hover.

Take a look at the image caption below:

Not every image needs a caption.

In fact, I wouldn’t recommend using one like in the example above.

Image captions are stronger when they provide real, additional value to the user. They’re great for screenshots, tutorials, and how-to steps. These areas can often use more explaining, and image captions give you that opportunity.

9. Optimize Your SEO Title and Meta Description

The previous 4 items were the most traditional image optimizations, but it’s important to remember that image SEO doesn’t stop at the image alone.

Confused?

Well, image SEO is part of a bigger SEO strategy.

You must take a holistic approach to your content to ensure the best results.

For example, on-page SEO is another critical component of your content strategy, specifically SEO titles and meta descriptions.

SEO titles, or page titles, are the blue hyperlinks in search results.

Meta descriptions are the text below your title that summarize your content.

It’s important to optimize both metadata elements for your target keyword.

This strategy provides search engines additional context around your images and how they fit within the page.

SEO titles are also particularly important because they appear in Google Images searches.

Titles appear below your image in Google Images results.

10. Add ImageObject Schema Markup

Technical SEO is another element to consider when optimizing your images, specifically schema markup.

Schema markup provides search engines with details about your web page in a way that’s easy for them to understand.

ImageObject schema is one type of schema markup that delivers supplementary information about your visuals.

Search engines can use this information to create rich snippets, which display your image in search results.

And here’s an excerpt of the ImageObject schema for this photo:

As for how to add image schema on your site, here’s a user-friendly tutorial: ImageObject Schema Generator and Guide.

WordPress users can use an SEO plugin like All in One SEO (AIOSEO).

It has a Schema Generator that allows you to add images to your schema markup. It’s super easy to use and doesn’t require any coding.

11. Make Images Responsive

Responsive images adjust their size depending on the user’s screen. This automatic resizing process ensures an optimal user experience across devices.

For example, it helps you avoid excessively large images on mobile devices or too small photos on desktops.

You make images responsive by using CSS.

However, if you’re a WordPress user, you don’t have to worry about this. WordPress resizes images automatically for you.

12. Implement Lazy Loading

If you have a lot of images on your website, lazy loading can make your pages run faster.

Lazy loading delays the loading of non-critical resources, such as images, until they are about to enter the user’s view.

This means that images below the fold (the part of the page that’s not immediately visible) aren’t loaded until the user scrolls down to them.

Some benefits of lazy loading include:

• Improved page load speed
• Reduced server load
• Lower data usage

While the implementation of lazy loading can vary depending on the platform, the general approach involves adding a loading=”lazy” attribute to your image tags.

Here’s what it looks like in HTML:

<img src="image-name.jpg" alt="Image description" loading="lazy">

13. Create an Image Sitemap

An image sitemap is a type of XML sitemap that helps search engines discover and crawl your images. It provides search engines with metadata about your images, which can lead to improved visibility in SERPs.

Google recommends formatting your image sitemaps like this:

You can also use sitemap plugins to create them automatically in WordPress.

AIOSEO has an XML sitemap generator that dynamically updates and generates sitemaps in real time. This ensures Google is aware of any changes on your site and can index them properly.

Plus, it’s totally code-free.

14. Serve Images Via a CDN

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) stores copies of your static assets, including images, on servers located worldwide.

When a user visits your website, the CDN delivers the image from the server closest to their location, significantly reducing load times.

This speeds up your website because it reduces the distance the image has to travel to reach the user’s device, resulting in faster load times.

Not sure which image CDN to use?

Here’s a lineup of the best CDN providers to speed up your website.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, incorporating image SEO best practices into your content creation efforts can help you:

• Enhance the user experience on your website
• Improve your visibility in search results
• Rank in Google Images
• Get rich snippets
• Drive organic traffic

By following the techniques in this article, you can ensure both users and search engines understand your visual content.

Remember, a well-optimized image is not just a visual element; it’s a powerful tool that can drive real results.