image-seolisted

# Image SEO Three separate wins, usually treated as one: traffic from image search, faster pages, and content that multimodal systems can actually interpret. Alt text serves accessibility first, and the SEO benefit is a byproduct of doing it properly rather than a reason to do it badly. ## Alt text Write it for someone who can't see the image. That constraint produces good SEO alt text automatically, and every attempt to reverse the priority produces worse text for both. | Context | Good alt | Why | |---|---|---| | Product photo | `Blue running shoe, side view, showing the mesh upper and heel counter` | Describes what's visible | | Chart | `Bar chart: organic sessions rose from 12,000 in January to 31,000 in August 2026` | The data, not "a chart" | | Screenshot | `Search Console Pages report showing 340 URLs excluded as crawled, currently not indexed` | What's on screen | | Decorative | `alt=""` | Empty, so screen readers skip it | | Image inside a link | `Pricing page` | Describes the destination, not the picture | | Logo | `Example` or `Example home` | The brand name | Rules: - **Describe, don't keyword-stuff.** `alt="running shoes cheap running shoes best running shoes"` fails accessibility and reads as spam. - **Skip "image of" and "picture of".** Assistive technology already announces it's an image. - **Under about 125 characters.** Longer gets truncated by some screen readers. If the image genuinely needs more, put the explanation in the surrounding text or a capt