A practical checklist for image SEO

Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. Run through this the next time image SEO comes up.

Search work compounds slowly, which is why it gets abandoned about two months before it would have paid off. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

The checklist

• Descriptive filenames and alt text both help
• Compressed images rank better because pages load faster
• Image search sends real traffic in visual industries
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

The reason this keeps coming up

Descriptive filenames and alt text both help. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

The short version

Technical fixes remove obstacles; content earns the position. Both are needed and they are not interchangeable. Three things worth confirming about image SEO before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Compressed images rank better because pages load faster — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.