Website images that help SEO: real photos, alt text and file size

Images help search and enquiries when they are real, described in text and small enough to load quickly. Use your own photos where you can, write short alt text for every image that carries meaning, compress files and set image dimensions so the page does not jump. Heavy, unlabelled stock photos do the opposite.

Key takeaways

• Real photos of your work, team and premises give visitors evidence that generic stock images cannot.
• Alt text describes what an image shows, for screen readers and for search engines.
• Oversized images are a common cause of slow pages, so resize and compress before uploading.
• Giving every image a width and height prevents the layout from shifting as it loads.
• Do not lazy-load the main image at the top of the page.

Why real photos beat stock

Visitors look for proof that a business is what it says. A photo of your actual workshop, office, team or finished project gives that proof. A stock photo of smiling people at a laptop gives none, and visitors have seen it elsewhere. Real photos do not need a professional shoot to be useful. Good light, a clean background and sharp focus on a modern phone are enough for most small businesses.

This links with the proof points we describe in our article on the professional services homepage.

Alt text: what to write

Alt text is a short description in the page code. Screen readers read it aloud for people who cannot see the image, and search engines use it to understand what the image shows. Describe the content plainly: "Oak dining table with six chairs in a bright showroom" is better than "table" or a string of keywords. If an image is purely decorative, give it an empty alt attribute so screen readers skip it.

Do not stuff keywords into alt text. Write for a person who cannot see the picture. Accessible images are also part of our Accessibility Act checklist.

File names, formats and size

Name files descriptively before uploading, such as "oak-dining-table-showroom.jpg" and not "IMG_4821.jpg". It helps you manage files and gives search engines an extra hint.

For size, resize the image to the largest size it will be displayed at. A photo straight from a phone may be several thousand pixels wide, far more than any screen layout needs. Then compress it, and use a modern format such as WebP or AVIF, which are usually smaller than JPEG at similar quality. Most modern website platforms can do the conversion for you.

Layout shift and loading

If a page does not know how big an image will be, text jumps down when the image appears. Set width and height on every image, or reserve its space in the layout. Google counts this jumping as Cumulative Layout Shift, and a good score is 0.1 or lower.

Images further down the page can load only when the visitor scrolls near them, which is called lazy loading. The main image at the top of the page, which is often the Largest Contentful Paint element, should load right away. Google's threshold for a good Largest Contentful Paint is 2.5 seconds or less. Our guide to website speed goes deeper.

Images on local and service pages

A page about a service becomes more convincing with photos of that service done. If you serve a local area, add photos that show it: the premises, the van, finished jobs in the region. Name the place in the caption where it is true. Our local SEO guide lists the other places to keep your information consistent.

A quick audit of your own site

Open your three most important pages and check four things. Are the photos yours? Does each meaningful image have a description? Are the files a reasonable size? Does the page stay still while it loads? Fix the heaviest images first.

If you want a second pair of eyes, our free website audit includes speed and image checks, and a free 30-minute discovery call is the place to discuss a photo plan. Our work shows how we present real projects.