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How to Name Images for SEO in Seconds

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Want to know how to name images for SEO?

Naming images for SEO will improve your search engine rankings and website traffic!

This tip makes it so easy – it literally will take just seconds.

After you grab this tip, don’t miss all the SEO image optimization tips later in this article.

Why images for SEO?

Blog post images offer a number of SEO benefits.

By including images on your web pages, you:

  • Make your articles easier to read (increasing time on-page).
  • Increase social sharing (Google loves social proof).
  • Allow more keywording opportunities.
  • Can get website traffic from Google image searches.

So you know you need images! Now let’s name them well to help you even more.

How to Name Images for SEO – FAST!

Since you know your SEO basics, you’re already using your best keywords in your headline and URL, right?

So copy and paste ’em for your image names!

Be sure the keywords and the image work together: the image should be described by your keyword phrase.

As Google says:

To boost your content’s visibility in Google Images, focus on the user by providing a great user experience: make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Make sure that your visual content is relevant to the topic of the page. source

OK, here’s the step-by-step.

1 | Optimize your page URL for your keyword phrase.

Usually this is one search term, but sometimes you can sneak in 2 related ones.

My main keywords for this post are how to name images for seo and images seo. I edited the URL down to how-to-name-images–seo, removing one extra word (also called “stop words”).

How to Name Images for SEO

No worries in any event, you can always rank for keywords that aren’t called out specifically in your URL. So don’t keyword stuff!

how-to-name-images–seo NOT

how-to-name-images–seo-image-optimization-search-images-optimization

Got it?

2 | Copy your edited URL / keyword phrase.

Click OK.

Now paste that phrase, including the hyphens, when saving (or renaming) the image you’ll be uploading for your blog post.

*NOTE: Be sure the image is relevant to the keyword phrase, and vice versa! More about relevance towards the end of this article.

How to Name Images for SEO Step 2

If using more than one image, you could save them with -1, -2, etc. added at the end.

If I just have 2 images for a post, I might name them “keyword-phrase-FB” and “keyword-phrase-PIN.” Of course, I always have at least one image for Facebook and one for Pinterest!

But when do I ever have just 2 images on a web page?!?

Go one better and name each image with a related keyword phrase that’s relevant to that particular image.

how-to-name-images–seo-step1

image-optimization-tip1

optimize-images-seo

seo-friendly-image-example1

And so on.

Hint: See tip 3 below for how to save your properly-named image file.

3 | Copy the keyword phrase from your blog post title.

Upload your image and paste the keyword phrase as the Alt Text of the image if relevant.

You can also add it as the Image Title, but this doesn’t affect SEO. Image Title is shown if someone mouses over the image on your site.

You can add other words after your keyword phrase as appropriate, such as Step 1, Step 2…

Always use alt text, and include relevant keywords.
Always use alt text, and include relevant keywords.

 

And as in point 2 above, use related keyword phrases where more relevant. Often you can copy these from text in the adjacent part of the article.

Note: Adding text to the Description field is unnecessary. This can only be seen on the backend of your site.

Admire your work.

That’s it! Now you have a keyword-rich image name and alternate text, which you just copied and pasted in seconds.

SEO for images: More tips!

Optimizing images for SEO goes well beyond the image file name.

Here are the steps to SEO image optimization:

1 | Use relevant images

Don’t use your keywords on irrelevant images just to get more keywords onto your page. Google hates keyword stuffing!

Serve the reader first by including useful, relevant images.

2 | Use proper SEO image naming convention

Google tells us “filenames and alt text are best when they’re short, but descriptive.” source

We covered naming images in-depth above.

3 | Save your images in the right file type

All things being equal, Google prefers sites that load quickly. So don’t shoot yourself in the foot by slowing down your site with bloated images.

In brief, PNG-8 will give you the smallest file size for graphics with limited colors.

JPEG is the file type for photos, as well as graphics that have many shadings of colors.

Reduce the pixel size of your image so it’s no larger than it will display online. Don’t place the full-size image on your page and reduce the dimensions in the code. That won’t help at all! It increases your page load time because the larger file still has to load, plus be reduced by the code.

For JPEGs, use the maximum compression that still displays at a good quality.

LEARN MORE: Image File Types: How to Win at JPG, GIF & PNG

4| Use image alt tags properly

The “alt” attribute allows you to specify alternative text for the image if it can’t be displayed, or your reader is visually impaired.

Always fill out the alt text unless the image is purely decorative and irrelevant, like a swash. Alt text is actually required under the American Disabilities Act for individuals who are unable to view images.

You can use your keyword phrase in the alt text, but be sure it’s descriptive of the image.

Don’t keyword stuff, and don’t use alt text for long-winded Pinterest descriptions.

Google tells us:

Avoid writing excessively long alt text that would be considered spammy. source

5 | Add descriptive captions

Not only do captions give you more keyword placements, they’re also among the most-read text on your web pages.

A caption will appear beneath the image and should explain what’s in the image.

Captions add context to your images so search engines can more easily understand them.

If your image would benefit from a caption, add one!

Use keywords, but as with everything else, don’t overdo the keywords. Be helpful.

6 | Add images to your sitemap

Google encourages website owners to submit a sitemap to them to help them better crawl your pages and get them added to their search results.

You can include images in your site’s XML sitemap, or create a separate image sitemap to submit.

For further reading on SEO [Search Engine Optimization]

Need more help with your SEO efforts?

Don’t miss my key post on easy SEO basics to improve your web traffic.

Want to hire out? Here’s how to choose the best SEO company to hire.

Know others who could use this easy tutorial on how to name images for SEO? Please share!

how to name images for SEO Pinterest image

Comments

  1. This is important for people who are visually impaired and are using screen readers. Google also looks at the alt text when indexing images, so it’s a good way to include keywords. Thanks for the post.

    Reply

  2. Thanks for this valuable information, I have been using the naming technique, but still found other tips that can be applied. What do you think of the images used for ecommerce website page, are they seo friendly compared to images uploaded directly to a page. Thanks.

    Reply

    • If I understand your question – You’d have to ask this of the ecommerce site that’s hosting them.

      Reply

  3. Hi, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out the best SEO for my images, thank you for your article, it’s been very helpful. I just have one last thing I can’t figure out…the file URL name and the title, can it be the same or is that keyword stuffing? It would be easy for me to just name them the same, which is the title of the blog post. Do you think it’s ok to just leave it, or should i change either the file URL or the title? I use WordPress.

    Reply

    • Image titles are not “seen” by Google so that doesn’t matter. If you have ONE image that has the same URL as the page URL that shouldn’t constitute “stuffing.” Just be SURE you aren’t creating media attachment pages as you don’t want 2 pages with identical URLs.

      Best practice: name images what they ARE and don’t take the easy way out.

      Reply

  4. Hi Louise

    Would you recommend adding my company name to an image description or the suppliers name ie:
    If my company was called My Lovely Beds ‘KidsSingleBedInBlue – My Lovely Beds’
    or if the supplier of the beds is Uglybeds ‘KidsSingleBedInBlue – UglyBeds’

    Many thanks

    John

    Reply

    • If you’re talking about the alt text, you want to describe what’s seen in the image for the visually impaired. So neither of these seems helpful. For the image name itself, use what would be more likely to be searched, or what helps YOU differentiate your files.

      Reply

      • Hi Louise

        I was referring to the image name, I seem to have read so much now that there seems to be a lot of contradictions out there! It’s like a mind field to us ‘novices’.
        So just to clarify, adding the brand name to an image may help with the seo as their name would be more likely to be searched for than mine…yes? 🙂

        John

        Reply

        • Yes, if that’s the keyword(s) you’re going after, such as “uglybeds kids beds” as keyword, then uglybeds-kids-single-bed.jpg.

          If you’re going after (for example) “wood kids beds”, then something like pine-kids-single-bed.jpg would support your main keyword more.

          There’s definitely a ton to know about SEO 😉

          Reply

  5. Hello Louise,
    Great, useful article. Thanks for sharing.
    I have a question . . .
    I have recently set up a new website using squarespace. All pretty good for me as a small start up business and Squarespace seems to to a great job of automatically optimising images I upload. However, it puts a plus sign + between the words – I’m sure squarespace would do anything to negatively affect SEO performance but what are your thoughts on this – example: gold+foiled+wedding+invitation.jpg ? Is this likely to have an impact?

    Many thanks Louise

    Reply

      • plus signs are automatically added – there are no hyphens when I upload – at the time of upload, I didnt realise this was what I should have done.

        Why wouldnt you want plus signs? Why might SquareSpace add these if they are not good?

        Reply

        • Search engines recognize hyphens as separating words. You would have to ask SquareSpace why they put in plus signs. I suppose they’ll tell you they’re just as good, but I’d ask for their reference for that.

          Don’t leave spaces in your file names going forward – use hyphens.

          Reply

    • Would the file name of icons be important for SEO? For example, social media icons, or logos of the companies a marketing agency has in their portfolio page?

      Reply

  6. If i chose one keyword if it is “ABCD” then i am writing one post on this, i have to add 3 relevant images in that post.

    is it wrong, if i used keyword ‘ABCD’ in all 3 images alt tag, name, title ?

    Actually i did this for about 60 post,

    it affects the seo or spammy for google ???

    is i need to change it ?

    what is your opinion please help .

    Reply

    • If the image names are alike it could be considered keyword stuffing. But only 3 may not be enough to need to go back and change. Be sure the alt text is descriptive for the visually impaired, though.

      Reply

  7. Great post and thanks for the tips. I was looking for something with more detail on how to fully optimize the image tags and you have done more than that. So thanks once again.

    Reply

    • Another thing you must do for SEO is keep improving and updating your articles! This one’s been updated several times over the years.

      Reply

  10. Hi,

    I am looking for naming images with size. What would it be best for SEO?

    /500×200/name-of-image.jpg
    /name-of-image-500×200.jpg

    Which one of the above goes well with SEO?
    The reason for that is to load the image according to the device size but its a representation of the same image in a different size

    Reply

  11. I am preparing photos for new website. I am renaming file names and updating image title, key words in Photoshop file info. Do I enter alt text into metadata in Photoshop or is that what web designer does when bringing files to the site?
    Thanks

    Reply

    • All you need is to name the images with keywords, and whoever adds the images to the site should add proper alt text. PS file info or metadata should not carry over to the web if they’re properly optimized to load quickly.

      Reply

  13. Term: image optimization for SEO

    Comment:
    First of all, thanks for the nice tips. I too believe, Alt Tag plays a most important role in SEO things because the search engine cannot read the image but it can read the text which is nothing but Alt Tag.…

    Also, everyone should make sure to insert the title into the images by using HTML code for SEO purposes. The images can help site owners to increase traffic and also sales. I have used Picasa for image re-sizing and it has worked out great so far. After image compression, it creates an ability to reduce blog loading speed and I think it’s better for SEO as well.

    I have to admit that I do concern myself with the keyword in the image, the image file size, and open graph. These Image SEO tips help me a lot to find images in a better way. I hope this might be useful for my blog.

    Great article! you have covered everything about image SEO. Keep up the good work..!!

    Reply

  14. Great tips on naming and especially when you create an image so you don’t have to double work so much. I hadn’t considered the blog format in a while and you explained t very well.
    I will definitely send people here when they need an example of value-added content. Thanks!

    Reply

  16. I like that you mentioned you can boost your content’s visibility on google by tailoring to relevant materials to keywords. I have been trying to help my brother get his photography gig off the ground. Maybe some image labeling software can help with that.

    Reply

  17. Thank you for your reply. So, just to clarify it further, if we keep the original file name as it is, and use the intended keyword for the title, would this be sufficient for SEO, or should we first replace the original file name with the keyword as well?

    Reply

    • Yes, “first replace the original file name with the keyword.” This is covered in step 2 of the article.

      Reply

  18. Hi Louise,

    Thank you for these useful tips. I’d always thought that I should’ve renamed the photos with intended keywords “before” uploading to my image library. So as I understand now, I can upload the images to my library with original names, and “then” rename them once I use them on a specific page. And I can use the same image in the library for multiple times in different pages with different names. Can you please confirm this?

    Reply

    • No, you cannot rename images after uploading. That would break the link to the image. You can change the TITLE but the image itself would still have the original name.

      Reply

  19. OMG!! I just ran across your article! Super helpful!! The SEO world is such a minefield of unhelpful/confusing advice but this actually makes sense. Thank you, very much!!

    Reply

  20. There are so many SEO companies that talk about the importance of image alt tags and they add it in as a service for their clients.

    If the client actually knew it was only taking a few minutes to do, they might not be as interested in that service!

    Reply

  21. Louise – My understanding of alt text is that it serves the purpose of describing what goes on in the image/photo itself. But if I understand correctly what you are advising, you indicate that the alt text should essentially be meta description, which is totally different.

    I am home decor blogger. For my alt text, I do write a description of what is in the photo, include the title of my post, and add my website name. Then I just copy and paste all of that into the description too.

    Also – about captions. I personally love captions; it helps me tie the image into the text. But the advice I have always read is not to use captions. I have never understood this; especially because I cannot tell you how many times I am reading blog post, looking for an image that supports the text or narrative, and come up completely empty handed. (Sorry for the rant.)

    Thank you for sharing this information !

    Reply

    • You are correct, the purpose of alt text is to describe the image for the visually impaired. At the time I wrote this, some social sharing apps pulled in the alt text for social shares, so I used the post meta description instead of something like “purple banner with text How to Use Images.”

      I’ve never used alt text as intended. All I can say in my defense is I get loads of search traffic ?

      Reply

  22. Hey Louise, Image optimization is the important SEO factor and now you cleared that easily. I am very happy thank you so much

    Reply

  23. Hi!!I am so happy I found this article!My website has been live for about 6 months and traffic has been low. I’ve read hundreds of articles on SEO practices but this by far seems to be the best one I’ve come across. Simple enough for me to understand and apply! So, should I go back through all of my products and make sure the title, image file name and alt tags match? And also are hyphens ok to use in the alt text?

    Reply

    • The most important thing is to use the right keywords in all those places. I’d start with your most popular or recent products. Match the keywords (or use similar ones – they don’t need to match exactly). I would not use hyphens in alt text.

      Reply

  24. Hi! Thank you for an awesome article! A quick question– you mention using the metadata in the alt text field. If you have multiple images in one blog post, do you use the same metadata for each image or do you change it up for each one?

    Reply

  25. Hey, Louise!

    Thanks for the article, a great read indeed. There is something that is still not clear to me, however, so I wonder if perhaps you could shed some light on it.

    I’ve searched and searched, but nowhere was it talked about in detail how unique for SEO the image title (in WordPress Media Library), alt text and description need to be. The reason this matters is because I tend to upload a lot of images that are related (say, a single photoshoot with 20 client images to display on a page from that session). Naturally, the title is going to be very similar, especially for, for example, two close-up portraits of a couple. Can I use the same alt text? Do I need a numeric sequence for the title field (Liza and Tom #1, Liza and Tom #2 and so on)? Will Google potentially see it as spam if the titles are the same, without the numeric sequence, and if alt text is the same and so on?

    I even tried looking at competitors to sort of get the idea, but so few of them actually optimize their images properly, I did not get anything resembling an answer.

    Thanks for your time, Louise, hope to hear from you!

    Sarah

    Reply

    • I often use the same image title and alt text, and my results are very good. I don’t recommend this as best practice (I’m not an SEO expert), all I can say is it hasn’t hurt me.

      Reply

  26. Hello Louise Myers,
    Your article is very good to know.
    for ex:if i have 3 image in my article and my main keyword is 1.apple image and my extra releted keywords 2.apple image hd 3.Download apple image.
    now my questions is if i use all keywords in my article all image alt it will helpful for keywords rank?
    thanks.

    Reply

  27. Great article Louise. I will apply these tips to my photos. Thanks!
    But how should I alt text many photos (like 30-40 photos) from a wedding.
    Should they all be the same???
    Thank you!

    Reply

  29. This is great Louise! Thank you. I’ve been copying and pasting the information in the title, alt text, and description for a few months now, so this is very reassuring! I didn’t know that about including the alt text in Pinterest. That’s great to know!

    Question: Does it matter whether we use a hyphen or an underscore? I go back and forth between the two.

    Reply

    • Yes, it does. You should use a hyphen for SEO. Google treats a hyphen as a word separator, but does not treat an underscore that way, so essentially you’re creating a run-on word that Google can’t understand.

      Reply

  30. I’m re-naming my images as we speak! Great article. I can really see how this would help. Do you think there is more importance or weight given to the alt tags or the file name of the image?

    Reply

  31. We rarely in the past rename images for seo purposes. Now we found out that seo images are pretty powerful and helps in rankings.

    Reply

  32. When naming a photo does capitalization matter? (i.e. Black-Cat-Under-Red-Car.jpg vs. black-cat-under-red-car.jpg) I’ve read articles that show examples of one or the other, but no reference yet to if either is preferred or better SEO.

    Reply

  33. SEO is a passive way to generate traffic. Being active on social media to actively promote your blog seems to be the better approach.

    Reply

    • Odd comment from someone who works for an SEO company!

      You need both.

      I’ve removed all your links. Don’t spam comments, that is not a good approach.

      Reply

  34. I love these types of guides – short, informative and which get straight to the essence! It’s an easy-to-follow guide (images you added also help) so even a rookie can follow the steps! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  36. Now Relay ( relaythat.com) adds seo to images for you automatically. You can have up to 20 keywords added to any set of photos!

    Reply

  38. You really makle it seem so easy together with your presentation however I to find this topic to be really one thing that I feel I’d never understand.
    It sort of feels too complicated and extremely wide for me.

    Reply

  39. Louise,

    I love this post and the step-by-step tutorial. You always make it super easy to implement smart ideas to help with SEO. I know a lot of us overlook naming graphics, but after doing a little bit of research for a recent blog post, I started naming my graphic files correctly AND making sure the alt text and description are filled out accordingly.

    Thanks again!

    Reply

  40. So would you recommend that we go back and rename all of our photos?! Would that make much difference?

    Reply

  41. I have a question Louise – When you change the permalink of your post, the status of the post should be in ‘Draft’ form.
    Otherwise if you have already published the post and you change the permalink, your post will show an Error. Is this not right?

    Reply

    • Absolutely, Elspeth!

      One thing to note is that you don’t want to publish your post until you’re done / happy with it. If you keep editing and updating, all the “pings” look bad to Google. Always polish it with these details before clicking the Publish button.

      Reply

  42. Hi Louise

    Great post and something I haven’t played around with yet. Every little thing we can do improve SEO helps and bit by bit will hopefully push us further up the SERP.

    Reply

  43. Nice one, Louise, great idea for a blog post!

    What do you do when you’ve got multiple images on the same post? I’m so lazy this is what I’ve been doing. So, say the image has this filename: “a-yellow-cat-sitting-on-a-hot-tin-wall.jpg”. I insert the image into WordPress and then I cut (Cmd/Ctrl-X) the title and paste it into the alt text. Lazy!

    And then, sometimes I don’t even bother taking the hyphen out of the alt text. I’ve always wondered if that mattered?!

    Reply

    • Usually when I have multiple images, it’s a step-by-step tutorial. So I just name them the same with -1, -2 etc at the end. Lazy too – probably better to use similar keywords.

      I don’t know about the hyphens – Google is smart enough to figure it out, but it may look a bit sketchy to them… who knows? I’m sure they won’t tell us 🙂

      Reply

  44. We know that content is the king in SEO, but now a days people have no more time to read all these content. So Image SEO really helpful to increase traffic on website and get more benefits.

    Reply

  45. Extraordinary tip, Louise! I as a rule don’t add a depiction to my photographs however its high time I do.

    Reply

  46. Great tip, Louise! I usually don’t add a description to my photos but with marketing becoming more visual, it’s high time I do.

    Reply

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