Signs it is time to revisit image SEO
This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. A few signals that image SEO is due some attention.
Search engines are trying to answer a question, so the pages that answer questions clearly tend to do well. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
The signals
- Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
- The answer depends on who you ask
- Descriptive filenames and alt text both help
- Compressed images rank better because pages load faster
How to approach it
Image search sends real traffic in visual industries. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.
How to tell if yours is fine
Search work compounds slowly, which is why it gets abandoned about two months before it would have paid off. 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.