Image SEO

Image SEO rests on six technical foundations. Miss one and you leave ranking potential on the table.

1. **Filenames** — Descriptive, hyphenated, keyword-relevant. Google's own guidelines say filenames matter. 2. **Alt text** — The primary accessibility and ranking signal. Required by WCAG. Indexed by Google. 3. **File size** — Smaller files load faster. Faster pages rank higher. Google's page experience signals confirm this. 4. **Format** — WebP and AVIF compress smaller than JPG. Google recommends next-gen formats in PageSpeed Insights. 5. **Responsive delivery** — Serve the right size to each device. Wasted bandwidth hurts mobile rankings. 6. **Embedded metadata** — EXIF/IPTC/XMP data persists when images are shared or re-uploaded.

Picture Optimizer automates all six. One pipeline. One credit per image.

Google Image Search handles 22.6% of all searches (SparkToro). For visual product categories — fashion, home decor, food, travel — the share is higher. Each properly optimized image is a ranking opportunity.

A furniture store with 2,000 product images — each with specific alt text, descriptive filenames, compressed to AVIF, served responsively — has 2,000 chances to appear in Google Image Search results. Each click goes directly to the product page.