Image SEO for online stores: file names, alt text and sizes that help you show up in Google Images

Image SEO for an online store is what gets your product photos showing up in Google Images and sending buyers to your product page. It comes down to four things: a file name that describes the product, alt text that says what's in the picture, photos that are light but sharp, and, whenever you can, your own photos instead of the manufacturer's.

It's one of the most rewarding fixes a store can make: it doesn't change the design or the catalog, just how the photos you already have are uploaded. If you're still taking the photos, start with photos for your business website. This post is about what happens when you upload them.

Google Images is a shop window too

Plenty of people shopping for something they need to see first (a backpack, a lamp, a replacement part, a shirt in a specific color) go straight to image search. They look, compare and click the one closest to what they want. If your photo is there, that click lands on your product page, with the price and the buy button.

For Google to show your photo, it has to understand what's in it, and it doesn't figure that out just by looking. It leans heavily on the file name, the alt text and what the page around it says. A photo named “IMG_4821.jpg” on a product page with no text is a photo Google doesn't know where to put.

Before and after, with store examples

Name the file before you upload it

It's the easiest step and the one most people skip, because it happens on your computer or phone before the photo goes up:

• Describe the product in shopper's words: what it is, the model or variant and, if there are several photos, what each one shows (“front”, “stitching-detail”, “in-use”).
• All lowercase, with hyphens between words and no accents or special characters, so nothing breaks anywhere.
• No stuffing: don't repeat “cheap,” “sale” or your store name on every file.
• A different name for every photo. If three photos share a name with a number at the end, you've missed the chance to describe what each one shows.

Alt text: what you'd say to someone who can't see it

Alt text is a short description of the photo that doesn't show on the page but is read by Google and by the screen readers people with low vision use. The simplest rule: write what you'd tell someone over the phone so they can picture it. “Olive green cotton T-shirt, back view” works. “T-shirt green t-shirt buy t-shirt” doesn't, and it can work against you.

You don't need to repeat the product title on every photo. If one shows the label, say so; if another shows it being worn, say that. And because it helps people who can't see well, it's part of an accessible site, which I cover in website accessibility for small businesses.

Light but sharp

A photo taken on a modern phone is far heavier than a product page needs. Upload it as is and the page loads slowly, the shopper leaves and Google notices. What you want is to resize it to the size it'll actually be shown at and compress it without losing the detail that matters: the fabric texture, the wood finish, the text on the label.

Some platforms handle part of this for you; others don't. On a custom store, I set it up so you upload the photo straight from your phone and the site takes care of the rest. Why speed matters so much is in why website speed matters.

Your own photo beats the manufacturer's

If you sell the same products as other stores and everyone uses the supplier's photo, Google has many copies of the same image and tends to show just one. Yours starts at a disadvantage. Adding at least one photo of your own per product (in use, in your shop, showing a detail the manufacturer's shot misses) gives your page something unique.

And give every color variant its own photo. Someone searching for “white sneakers” wants to see the white ones, not the black pair with a little color swatch underneath. The rest of the page (copy, sizes, questions) is covered in product pages that sell.

Frequently asked questions