You’ve probably heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Generally, it’s a phrase that means a single picture can have many different meanings, emotions, and implications. But it also implies that pictures and images are highly important to our processing, which is true. It’s safe to assume that people are actively searching for images online (because they are), much like they search for content.
Today, that search behavior spans Google Image Search, Google Lens, and other visual search features, making your images a real entry point to your website. Google’s MUM (Multitask Unified Model) technology is multimodal, meaning it can understand information across text and images and use that understanding to answer more complex questions.
Why Google Image Search Still Matters
Google Image Search has morphed from a secondary feature into one of the biggest discovery engines on the internet. People run ~12 billion visual searches through Google Lens every month. That’s a lot of traffic! And get this: About half of online shoppers say images were what actually sealed the deal on a purchase they made.
Plus, image search can pull in during regular search, too. We also know that Google continues to index more and more images, and that image search is growing in use and popularity.
What does this mean for your business? It means that Google Image Search can be a great way to help funnel traffic to your website, especially if you’ve already pursued more advanced SEO tactics.
Why Images Are Important for SEO and Accessibility
First, we’re not trying to discredit or downplay regular keyword and key phrase search. In virtually all respects, you’d be right to assume that these should be prioritized; they offer too much value on their own not to. However, image search can be highly advantageous to your SEO if you’re at an advanced stage. Not to mention the fact that image search’s first intended use was to help people with a visual impairment—still an important aspect to this day. Accessibility is a major part of web development and good website design.
Think about it for a second: People use images every day. They need them for blogs, videos, newsletters, presentations, papers—you name it. People are almost always on the hunt for a good image or visual to help their content. And that’s not all. Images can also help your audience understand you better. Again, a picture is worth a thousand words. Having high-quality images online can help your company stand out and drive traffic to your site.
So what makes an image “stand out” in that crowd? It comes down to SEO fundamentals: filenames, alt text, image quality, load speed, and context. Search engines lean on all of these to understand your visuals and decide whether or not they deserve a spot in Google Image Search.
The Basics: How to Optimize Images for SEO
Let’s say we’ve convinced you about the importance of images and the significance of Google Image Search in your broader SEO strategy. So, how do you go about actually optimizing images?
Here are some current best practices for how to optimize images for SEO in Google Image Search:
Use Better, Descriptive File Names
Create a better file name. Oftentimes, cameras default to unintelligible file names like DCS_0002.jpg. Adobe Stock does something similar if you choose to go that route. Changing the file name to a keyword phrase allows search engines to crawl the image more accurately, which can pay off in SEO value for you.
Google prefers file names to be short, descriptive, and readable by an actual human. Separate words with hyphens, and only work in a keyword when it genuinely describes what’s in the photo (e.g., “red-running-shoes-trail.jpg”). This is a small fix, but it’s foundational because it’s how Google connects your image to the right search query in the first place.
Write Helpful Alt Text (Not Keyword Stuffing)
Properly “alt tag” your image. Alt tags are another way search engines understand your image, and they help with screen readers and accessibility as well. Be sure to properly “alt tag” your image so that it accurately describes what the image is.
Like file names, Google prefers alt text descriptions that are useful and informative, written in the context of the page, with keywords used naturally rather than crammed in. You can ditch the “image of” filler to keep it under 125 characters and specific, like “woman riding a bicycle through a city park at sunset.”
Compress, Resize, and Use Modern Formats
Compress the image to an optimized storage size. As a general rule, you want images to have an inverse relationship between size and storage space: You want images to be as big as possible without taking up too much space. Compressing an image allows you to retain image quality while reducing storage space. This can help with load times, a potential factor in bounce rates.
Current best practices emphasize resizing images to their actual display dimensions. You can compress them with tools like TinyPNG or ShortPixel (or whatever your CMS is built on), so the file size shrinks without diminishing image quality. When it comes to formatting, Google supports JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG, and AVIF. Since websites that load quickly and have higher-quality images improve user experience, it makes sense that these websites also have better visibility in Search, further confirming that Google rewards fast loading times.
Add responsive images (srcset or picture tags) and lazy loading, and your pages will easily pass performance checks while still looking good.
Choose Relevant and Unique Images
Use related, real images. The images for you on Google Image Search should be relevant to your business in some way or, at the very least, not distinct from another known brand, person, or place. If not, users may become confused, which can impact your bounce rate.
Say, for example, your blog features an article about basketball. For images, you have the choice between a basketball court and LeBron James. You’d likely want to opt for the basketball court, as people searching for LeBron James are probably interested in seeing player statistics, things about his personal life, and the like. They may decide to click off your site once they realize that your content isn’t what they’re after.
Google recommends choosing images that actually represent the page topic and placing them near the text they support. An off-topic or misleading image might grab a click from Google Image Search, but it’ll also spike your bounce rate and hurt your engagement.
This is where high-quality, authentic photography can make a big difference. Real photos of your products, team, and location can build trust, boost click-through rates, and perform better in visual search tools like Google Lens. For local and service-based businesses, especially, unique images help Google understand exactly what you do, which makes it easier to match you with nearby customers who are already looking for your services.
Get Help Bringing It All Together
When you put it all together, you’ve built a visual SEO foundation to support your rankings at every turn, standard search results and Google Image Search alike. Every detail you sharpen helps search engines understand, index, and ultimately showcase the images that represent your business.
Need more help with your image SEO or SEO in general? Uptick Marketing has the SEO expertise you need to see a rise in organic traffic. Reach out to us for a no-obligation fact finder about how we can help improve your visibility toward broader market goals.
