Choose a representative sample
Select a product page, category page, article, landing page, and any gallery template your site uses. Review the most valuable or most frequently visited examples first, then expand when you find a recurring problem.
Create a sheet with page URL, image URL, purpose, alt text, visible issue, proposed action, and owner. Distinguish an actual defect from an optional improvement so editors can work in a sensible order.
Separate content and delivery issues
Content issues include inaccurate descriptions, missing distinctions between product views, and images that do not support the page. Delivery issues include broken files, poor mobile crops, unreadable text, and unnecessarily large downloads.
Do not infer that a descriptive filename means the image is fully optimized. Inspect the placement itself. A correct file can still be reused with inappropriate context or shown at an unsuitable size.
Make fixes measurable
Group problems that share a cause. If a theme supplies filenames as alt text, fixing the template may be more effective than editing each asset. If a photographer’s exports are consistently oversized, improve the handoff process.
Retest the same sample after changes. Keep before-and-after notes and compare website performance and search data over time where available. A ranking movement alone does not prove that one image edit caused it; several page and market factors can change together.
A practical comparison
- Before
- A list of 2,000 images with no priorities
- Better approach
- A queue of broken assets, inaccurate descriptions, and template-level fixes
Assign each finding an owner and a specific verification step.
Illustrative example, not a customer result.Further reading
For platform guidance, consult Google’s image SEO documentation and the W3C image accessibility tutorials. These guides combine editorial workflows with the product’s current capabilities; search visibility depends on more than image metadata.
Put the workflow to use
Draft descriptive filenames and alt text, review the results, and export your image metadata. Start with 10 images per month on Free.
Optimize your first imageCompare plans