So I’m scrolling through my own online store one night, and boom—it hits me.
Why ain’t my products showing up in Google Images?
Turns out, I’d been doing everything wrong with my pictures. You ever just assume uploading a nice-looking photo is enough? That was me. But after digging deep into image SEO, my traffic started spiking. Let me spill it all.
Rename the Pics Like You Mean It
You know those file names like IMG_00375.JPG?
Trash ‘em. Useless.
When I started calling my product photos things like tan-suede-boots-men.jpg, something clicked—Google understood them better.
Just use dashes instead of underscores, that’s important too. I don’t know why exactly, but it is.
Also don’t go overboard with stuffing a hundred keywords. Keep it normal, or bots freak out.
File Types Actually Matter (Who Knew?)
I ain’t a tech guy, but file types? They’re a big deal. JPEGs are chill for real-life stuff.
PNGs? Use those when you need sharp edges or transparency or whatever.
Now me, I like WebP. Way faster load times. You could cut your page size almost in half. Wild, right?
SVGs? Those things are magic for logos. Scales up, down, sideways—never blurry. I didn’t even know what they were at first.
Compress ‘Em Before They Weigh Down the Whole Site
Okay so here’s the thing—uncompressed images? They’ll wreck your speed.
I use TinyPNG a lot. It’s clean, quick, free-ish. You shrink down a 500KB file to like 90KB and it still looks crispy.
Honestly, I don’t notice a difference visually—but my site loads way faster now.
You’ll wanna aim for under 200KB most times. Sometimes I go over, but that’s rare and usually regret it.
Alt Text Ain’t Optional (It’s Gold)
People ignore alt text and I just don’t get it. It’s like… the secret weapon.
Google reads that stuff. So do screen readers, which is good for accessibility.
For example, I don’t write stuff like: “image of dress.” That’s bland and lazy.
Instead I’ll type something like: “Flowy emerald green maxi dress with puff sleeves for summer wear.” You know, paint a word picture.
Funny thing, I used to leave it blank. Kinda hurts to admit that now.
Original Photos > Manufacturer’s Copy-Paste
Real talk: if you’re just copying the images suppliers send you, you’re losing.
I take my own photos now, most of the time. Sometimes I’ll even throw the product in a park or café just to make it pop.
Even showing a product in someone’s hands or with pets nearby—way more real.
Search engines eat up original visuals. Plus buyers trust it more when it’s yours, not some stocky garbage.
Lazy Loading Changed My Life
Don’t laugh, but I didn’t even know what lazy loading was until last year.
It’s just a thing where your images don’t load unless you scroll to them. So like, the page loads fast, and the rest catches up.
All I did was add loading="lazy" to my image tags. Game changer.
Also? It saves data for mobile users. They’ll love you for that.
Schema What? Oh Yeah, That’s Important Too
So I learned about structured data kind of late. But when I finally wrapped my head around it?
Everything made more sense.
Google needs help figuring out what’s what. That’s where Schema markup comes in. You tag the image, product name, price, blah blah—all of it.
I use a plugin for that because I’m not coding this stuff by hand.
But don’t skip it. It’s what gets your images showing up in those fancy product cards on search pages.
Don’t Forget the Sitemap (I Did… For Months)
Y’know how Google can’t always find every image you’ve got? Yeah, you gotta help it.
An image sitemap basically lays it all out for search bots. Just list the image URLs and captions in XML format. I added mine to Google Search Console and boom—indexing improved overnight.
It looks scary, but most platforms generate it for you. I just double-checked mine and added missing products.
Make It Mobile. Period.
Not gonna lie—I was optimizing for desktop only until my friend yelled at me.
Most of my sales come from phones. What was I even thinking?
I switched to responsive images using srcset. You give the browser a few options for different screen sizes, and it chooses the best one.
It’s kinda like giving it a menu and letting it pick what fits.
And man, my bounce rate on mobile? Dropped fast.
Check Everything—Then Check It Again
Last thing I’ll say: you gotta test everything. Don’t assume stuff’s working.
I use PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, Lighthouse… all of ‘em.
Once, one image was crashing my mobile load time by 8 seconds. I compressed it and cut that in half.
Google Search Console’s your buddy too. I check it like twice a week now just to stay ahead.
Wrapping This Messy Beautiful Thing Up
So yeah. Optimizing images for e-commerce SEO ain’t rocket science, but you can mess it up easy if you’re not looking.
Start small. Pick your top five products. Rename the pics. Write clean alt text. Compress the files.
Next thing you know, you’ll be outranking the lazy stores who just upload whatever without thinking.
Trust me—I was that guy. Never again.
Got questions? Or maybe you’re stuck somewhere? Hit me up in the comments. I’ve probably made the same mistake already. Also, you can learn more about E-commerce here.