A short guide to image SEO

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. Everything we would tell a client about image SEO in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

Search work compounds slowly, which is why it gets abandoned about two months before it would have paid off. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What is actually at stake

Descriptive filenames and alt text both help. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

Where to start

Compressed images rank better because pages load faster. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

The mistakes we see most

Image search sends real traffic in visual industries. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

How to tell if yours is fine

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
• Image search sends real traffic in visual industries — 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.