Are you looking to improve image SEO on your website? When optimized properly, image search can bring many new visitors to your website.
To benefit from image SEO, you need to help search engines find your images and index them for the right keywords.
In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to optimize image SEO by following top best practices.
Here is a brief overview of what you’ll learn in this article.
- Optimizing your images for SEO and Speed
- What is Alt text?
- Difference between Alt text vs title
- Difference between alt text and caption
- How to add alt text, title, and caption to images in WordPress
- When to use captions for images
- Disable attachment pages in WordPress
- Additional tips to improve image SEO
Optimizing Your Images for SEO and Speed
Speed plays an important role in SEO and user experience. Search engines consistently rank fast websites higher. This is also true for the image search.
Images increase your overall page load time. They take longer to download than text, which means your page loads slower if there are several large image files to download.
You need to make sure that images on your site are optimized for web. This can be a little tricky to get used to since many beginners are not experts in graphics and image editing.
We have a handy guide on how to properly optimize images before uploading them to your website.
The best way to optimize images is by editing them on your computer using a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. This allows you to choose the right file format to create a small file size.
You can also use an image compression plugin for WordPress. These image optimizer plugins allow you to automatically reduce file size while uploading an image to WordPress.
What is Alt Text?
Alt text or alternative text is an HTML attribute added to the img
tag which is used to display images on a web page. It looks like this in plain HTML code:
<img src="/fruitbasket.jpeg" alt="A fruit basket" />
It allows website owners to describe the image in plain text. The main purpose of the alternate text is to improve accessibility by enabling screen readers to read out the alt text for visually impaired users.
Alt text is also crucial for image SEO. It helps search engines understand the context of the image.
Modern search engines can recognize an image and it’s content by using artificial intelligence. However, they still rely on website owners to describe the image in their own words.
Alt text also accompanies images in Google image search, which helps users understand the image and improves your chances of getting more visitors.
Usually, alt text is not visible on your website. However if an image is broken or cannot be found, then your users will be able to see the alternate text with a broken image icon next to it.
What is the Difference Between Alt Text vs Title
Alt text is used for accessibility and image SEO, while title field is used internally by WordPress for media search.
WordPress inserts the alt tag in the actual code used to display the image. The title tag is stored in the database to find and display images.
In the past, WordPress inserted the title tag in the HTML code as well. However, it was not an ideal situation from the accessibility point of view, which is why they removed it.
What is the Difference Between Alt Text vs Caption
The alt text is used to describe the image for search engines and screen readers. On the other hand, the caption is used to describe the image for all users.
Alt text is not visible on your website while captions are visible below your images.
The alt text is crucial for better image SEO on your website. The caption is optional and can be used only when you need to provide additional information about the image to website visitors.
How to Add Alt Text, Title, and Caption to Images in WordPress
Alt text, title, and caption make up the image metadata that you can add to images when uploading them into WordPress.
When you add an image using the default image block, WordPress allows you to add caption and alt text for the image.
It automatically generates a title for the image from the file name. You can change the title by clicking on the edit button in the image block’s toolbar.
This will bring up the media uploader popup where you can enter your own custom title for the image.
You can also edit the alt tag and title for the images that you have already uploaded to WordPress. To do that, you need to visit Media » Library page and locate the image you want to edit.
Simply clicking on an image will bring up the attachment details popup where you can enter title, alt text, and caption.
Note: Changing an image’s alt tag or caption via Media Library will not change it in the posts and pages where the image is already used.
When to Use Captions for Images in WordPress
Captions allow you to provide additional details for an image to all your users. They are visible on the screen for all users including search engines and screen readers.
As you may have noticed that most websites don’t normally use captions with images in their blog posts or pages. That’s because captions are often not needed to explain an image.
Captions are more suitable in the following scenarios:
- Family or event photos
- Photos that need additional explanation describing the background story
- Product image galleries
In most cases, you would be able to explain the image in the article content itself.
Disable Attachment Pages in WordPress
WordPress creates a page for all images you upload to your posts and pages. It is called the attachment page. This page just shows a larger version of the actual image and nothing else.
This can have a negative SEO impact on your search rankings. Search engines consider pages with little to no text as low quality or ‘thin content’.
This is why we recommend users to disable the attachment pages on your website.
The easiest way to do this is by installing and activating the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, it automatically turns off attachment URLs. You can also manually turn off attachment pages in WordPress by visiting All in One SEO » Search Appearance page and clicking on the Media tab.
From here, make sure that the ‘Redirect Attachment URLs’ option is set to ‘Attachment’.
If you are not using AIOSEO plugin, then you can install the Attachment Pages Redirect plugin. This plugin simply redirects people visiting the attachment page to the post where the image is displayed.
You can also do this manually, by adding the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.
function wpb_redirect_attachment_to_post() { if ( is_attachment() ) { global $post; if( empty( $post ) ) $post = get_queried_object(); if ($post->post_parent) { $link = get_permalink( $post->post_parent ); wp_redirect( $link, '301' ); exit(); } else { // What to do if parent post is not available wp_redirect( home_url(), '301' ); exit(); } } } add_action( 'template_redirect', 'wpb_redirect_attachment_to_post' );
Additional Tips to Improve Image SEO
Adding alt tag is not the only thing you can do to improve image SEO. Following are a few additional tips that you should keep in mind when adding images to your blog posts.
1. Write descriptive alt text
Many beginners often just use one or two words as alt text for the image. This makes the image too generic and harder to rank.
For example, instead of just ‘kittens’ use ‘Kittens playing with a yellow rubber duck’.
2. Use descriptive file names for your images
Instead of saving your images as DSC00434.jpeg, you need to name them properly. Think of the keywords that users will type in the search to find that particular image.
Be more specific and descriptive in your image file names. For example, red-wooden-house.jpeg is better than just house.jpeg.
3. Provide context to your images
Search engines are getting smarter every day. They can recognize and categorize images quite well. However, they need you to provide context to the image.
Your images need to be relevant to the overall topic of the post or page. It is also helpful to place the image near the most relevant text in your article.
4. Follow the SEO best practices
You also need to follow the overall SEO guidelines for your website. This improves your overall search rankings including image search.
5. Use original photographs and images
There are many free stock photography websites that you can use to find free images for your blog posts. However, the problem with stock photos is that they are used by thousands of websites.
Try to use original photographs or create quality images that are unique to your blog.
We know that most bloggers are not photographers or graphic designers. Luckily, there are some great online tools that you can use to create graphics for your websites.
We hope this article helped you learn about Image SEO for your website. You may also want to see our guide on how to fix common image issues in WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Is it OK to edit all these photos in my WP Dashboard Media Library if the website and individual pages are already published and live? Do I need to delete each photo and reload a copied version of photo that has correct Alt Tags, Title, Description?
If you made changes in the media library to image tags, you would need to re-add the images for the information to be what you have changed it to for media already on your site.
That was a great explanation. I’ve been searching for this specific type of information for days, your’s was the best I found. Thank you!
You’re welcome
Does the description of an attached image have any effect on a pages SEO?
It does not have a major SEO impact at the moment.
Re: image size – I have uploaded images 1200x1200px @around <1mb. Does it make sense to reduce the file size directly in WP (e.g. insert images not in 'full size' but rather in 'large', 'medium' etc)? Or do i have to take care of image size when directly uploading the images from my hard drive? Thanks
At that point, it becomes more of a personal preference question but we prefer to optimize and resize images before uploading them to a WordPress site if that is what you mean.
Thank you for this good post.
You’re welcome, glad you liked our post
Hi,
Thank you for sharing the image optimization tips. My concern is a different thing. For example, I published one blog post including an image. Later, I want to remove that image from the post and add a new one. If I remove it and add a new image. Will it affect my sites SEO?
It shouldn’t have a major ranking change for your site’s SEO if you change the image.
What about Description Field?!
That field is for displaying text on the image attachment page or below the image depending on your theme’s design rather than something major for SEO at the moment
Hello! Thank you so much for this information. I have been looking for a post like this for a while now.
For the pictures of myself that go under my “About me” section in my blog, do they still need metadata?
We would recommend adding metadata to those images as well
I appreciate your quick response.
Hey,
Thanks for the great article.
Are there any specific guideline for adding alt text to bog cover image
You would follow it the same as you would for other images, when selecting the image you should have the option to edit the tags with the media uploader
Hi:
Great article!!!
I got a question, you said : “Changing an image’s alt tag or caption via Media Library will not change it in the posts and pages where the image is already used.”
Does that mean I need to reinsert image again after add alt tag in Media Library?
Thank you
After you set it up in the media library, once you attempt to add it to a post, it should bring in tags you set in the media library
Thank you
You’re welcome
This is most helpful, Syed, especially your explantation about “How to Add Alt Text, Title, and Caption to Images in WordPress”.
Thank you.
Glad our article was helpful
I’ve been doing SEO since before Google existed. I came to read this just for fun and because I trust WP beginner.
I actually learned something.
I had no idea the alt tag was used in Google image search to describe the image.
Glad our article could help teach something new
Due to time constraints and sheer volumes of photos I am asked to post on over 5 websites I manage for my organization, I often neglect the metadata and regret it later on. This is a very important article and a great incentive for all of us to organize our media libraries from the get go and discipline ourselves with each image added to provide this info. (Not to mention our posts and pages!)
Thank you.
Thanks for the feedback on our article and the importance of metadata
Wow! Great article again. I need this to improve my images. Yes, I’m using Yoast SEO, but never thought of using it to improve images on my site, especially turning off the “attachment pages”.
Thanks for helping me find the best WordPress tips when I need them. You have taught me a lot of things.
John Shalom
Glad our article could help
Should I use original files from stock photo. Because the images are high resolution and size. And gtmetrics suggested to use optimised photos…
Depending on where you got the stock photo from, you would want to check their license agreement to be sure that is allowed.
I regulary get a message on my desktop about your site. How do I stop this?
If your browser automatically accepted our push notifications for some reason, you should be able to right-click the notifications to stop them.