Images make a post easier to read, but they can also slow your pages and leave search engines guessing what they show. A few small habits fix most of that. This guide follows Google’s own image guidance and web.dev’s advice on formats.
Write Alt Text for People First
Google calls alt text the most important image metadata. Describe what the image shows, in the context of the page, the way you would to someone who cannot see it. Google’s example: “Dalmatian puppy playing fetch” is better than “puppy,” and neither should become a list of keywords. Stuffing keywords into alt text hurts the reading experience and can look like spam. If an image is purely decorative, leaving the description empty is common practice for accessibility tools.
Use Descriptive File Names
Rename files before uploading. Google recommends short, descriptive names, such as my-new-black-kitten.jpg rather than IMG00023.JPG, and advises avoiding generic names like image1.jpg. Use lowercase words separated by hyphens.
Pick the Right Format and Shrink the File
Google says images are often the largest part of page weight and recommends compressing and resizing them. According to web.dev, JPEG, lossy WebP or lossy AVIF suit photos and screenshots; PNG suits fine detail but produces large files; SVG suits logos and icons; and you should avoid putting text inside images because it cannot be selected or searched. WebP and AVIF usually compress better but need support in modern browsers. Test a few quality levels and keep the smallest file that still looks sharp. Google supports BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG and AVIF, and the file extension should match the real file type.
Give Images Context
- Place each image near text that relates to it.
- Use standard
imgelements; Google does not index CSS background images. - Choose a clear, representative image for sharing, and avoid logos, text-heavy images and extreme shapes for your main image.
- Check page speed with PageSpeed Insights.
Better images will not rescue a weak post, so pair this checklist with solid titles and meta descriptions and internal links.
A Quick Image Checklist
- Rename the file with a few descriptive words.
- Resize it to roughly the width it will display.
- Compress it and compare it with the original.
- Write one plain sentence of alt text.
- Preview the page on your phone to check loading.
Do this today
Open your three most recent posts. For each image, check the file name, rewrite the alt text in one plain sentence, and see whether the file can be compressed. Then use the same checklist before your next upload. Under an hour.
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