How to Get Images to Rank (Image Optimization Guide)

Getting a blog post to rank is one thing (please check out my “how to show up in the AI overview blog,” which is currently ranking, for a good example). 

But getting images to show up in the Image Results of Google? That’s a whole other ballgame. 

It is, however, still technically part of SEO. 

Which means as a self-proclaimed SEO expert, I should be able to speak to it. 

So, that said, here are some tips and tricks I have used (firsthand) to get images to show up in the Image Results.

Use Original Images Only 

This is the most important bit of advice I can offer you and I cannot stress this enough. I do not care what you read about stock images, or where you read it. Do not use them.

They might produce a passable UX, and some journalists and bloggers might have no other option. 

But if your goal is literally to get images (not just the post) to rank, don’t even waste your time. 

Stock images are duplicate files. Google knows they are duplicate files. They’re not going to rank competitively. I don’t care what titles and alt text you assign them. 

So, take your own pictures, and make sure they’re high quality. Grainy garbage is not going to rank. You want professional resolution here. The sharper the better. 

One note I would like to make here, though. I don’t know if using AI-generated images counts as original. Like, technically I know it’s an original file, but if the engine you use to create it saves a copy, that then would be considered the original file and not whatever you publish. 

Anyway, I’m not going to say not to use generative AI to make images because they’re getting pretty good. Just take that caveat that I’m not promising that you can get AI-generated images to rank. Maybe you can, and maybe not. I don’t have experience getting AI-generated images to rank and I do with my own photography, so I can’t vouch for the former personally.

Compress the Image File

If you use Google’s PageSpeed Insights and run a URL (that has images) through it, you’ll see something almost across the board that’s very relevant to what I’m writing about. 

Go ahead and try it. I’m not a betting man but if I were I would take a wager that the main areas that page failed had to do with load speed, and that the slow load speeds were directly attributable to massive image file sizes. 

This is a plague that affects websites of all sorts. I have seen it personally. Not only does having massive image files tank your load speeds (which is bad for SEO, generally) but having massive image files sizes also reduces the chances the image will rank to near nil. 

Now here’s the problem. Right above I told you to use really high-quality images. Really high-quality images with sharp resolution are usually massive files and require a lot of storage. That is counterintuitive. 

What you do to make a fix, however, is simple: run the image through a compressor. There are tons of free compression tools that take the file and compress it, resulting in no loss of visual quality, but drastically reducing the amount of storage needed. 

As a result, the image file still looks great but will load much faster, which improves technical SEO and considerably increases the chances that the image will rank.

By the way, here are some free image file compression tools:

• Optimizilla
• TinyPNG
• FreeConvert
• Image Resizer

Another by the way: compressing your image file sizes will speed up the whole URL, which doesn’t just mean chances are better that the images on the page will rank. It increases the chances that your overall SEO will improve. 

Use a Responsive Theme 

This should actually go without saying primarily because it is an indelible aspect of general technical SEO, and is not specifically related to image optimization, but if your theme is not mobile responsive, your website will suffer, and your images will not rank (or not rank well) as a result. 

So keep that in mind.

Add Alt Text

After compressing your images, this is one of the most important ranking signals associated with image optimization and I know for a near fact that many of the images I have gotten to rank have done so because I was smart with alt text. 

See, here’s the cool thing. Compared to how many search listings there are, there is probably a lot less competition for image listings. It could be that SEO experts don’t use as many images (or use many images per page) or it could be (more likely) that most “experts” just don’t add alt text to image files. 

I don’t blame them. It’s a tiny optimization and even if all your images were optimized with several strings of high-volume, low-difficulty keywords, a page that was otherwise bad would not show up in the SERPs. 

The images, however, might, and in the realm of image optimization, specifically, this is probably the second biggest thing you can do. 

How to add alt text to an image is something that will vary slightly depending on platform, but it is an easy thing to do regardless. On WordPress, for instance, go to your media center and click on one of the images. Over on the right side of the screen there should be a field for alt text, along with a few other fields. Add your alt text right in there. 

By the way, when you’re optimizing an image with alt text, don’t just stick it in there as a standalone. Craft a small blurb for your image, sort of like a caption. Describe what you see in the image and include the keyword organically. Try not to stuff too many in. 

You’ll be surprised how effective this tactic is. Even if you’re struggling to get pages to rank, you’ll be pretty likely to get some images to show up in the Image Results for those target keywords.

Add a Caption

I have noticed that adding captions to images, while not as important as adding alt text, also gives them a boost when I want them to rank. 

When adding a caption, it is critical that what you write offers value to the reader. You want some keywords to be in there for Google’s sake, but primarily you want to increase the user’s engagement with the page and, specifically, with the image. 

So don’t just describe the image. Offer a little bit of insight into why the picture is relevant to the post or something like that. I’ll be honest, it’s a little hard for me to come up with something on the fly, so I’ll show an example here: 

See what I did with that caption? It sort of reiterates one of the ways you can get your images to rank, which should offer you value if that’s the reason you got to this post in the first place. 

Get creative with it. This is the most subjective piece of advice I’m offering in this post so there really isn’t necessarily a “wrong” way to do it. 

Get Your Images to Rank, Starting Now 

If you put all of the techniques into practice that I recommended, right now, there’s no reason you can’t start getting your website’s image to rank, and pretty soon at that. 

Give it a try and see which of these works best for you.