How can images support useful content and search discovery?
Use relevant, cleared, readable images with useful context and alternative text, then optimize dimensions, formats, and loading.
On this page
Direct answer
Use relevant, cleared, readable images with useful context and alternative text, then optimize dimensions, formats, and loading. Bigger is not always better, and alt text is not a keyword list.
When to use
Content depends on diagrams, examples, or product images that need accessible explanation.
Step by step
Define the image’s role
Distinguish content, functional, and decorative images. Check permissions, private details, and meaning. Use real evidence for product claims or clearly label illustrations.
Supply understandable context
Place images near related text. Describe essential information for content images and actions for controls; handle decoration appropriately. Explain key chart findings in text as well.
Validate delivery and display
Use suitable sizes, responsive sources, and reserved space. Check mobile clarity, failures, and performance, choosing loading behavior appropriate to whether an image is critical. Verify public asset URLs.
Worked example
Hypothetical exercise, not a real performance claim.
A screenshot with an email or token needs replacement or redaction before publication, plus explanatory steps. Cropping one corner does not establish that the rest or its metadata is clean.
Action checklist
Reusable templates
Image review
Role and supported task:
Permission and privacy checks:
File, dimensions, format:
Context and alternative text:
Mobile, failure, performance results:
Public access and updates:
Pitfalls
Avoid irrelevant large images and repeated keywords across alt text, filenames, and link titles. Align asset visibility with page permissions.
Related guides
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