Start with the honest part
For most local businesses, images don't rank on their own and bring in customers. What they do is support a page: they show the work, keep people reading, and give search engines more context about what the page covers. So the goal isn't to hide keywords in every file. It is to label your visuals clearly, in the places search engines read, without making the page worse for the people using it.
This is part of the on-page work we describe under on-page SEO and content. Here is how it breaks down, spot by spot, based on Google's published image and video guidance and what we see on real sites.
File names: the first label a search engine sees
Google's image guidance recommends file names that are short but descriptive. A phone camera hands you something like IMG_4521.jpg, which tells a crawler nothing. Renaming it before upload takes seconds.
What a good file name looks like
Use lowercase words separated by hyphens and describe what is in the picture: tile-shower-remodel-henderson.jpg rather than final-final-2.jpg. A place name is fine when the photo really is from that job. Five near-identical files all named after the same keyword phrase is not.
Don't rename blindly after the fact
Renaming an image that is already live changes its URL. If other pages, your profile, or social posts point at the old file, those links break. Fix names on new uploads first.
Alt text: accessibility first, search second
Alt text is the description a screen reader speaks aloud and a browser shows when an image fails to load. Google says it uses alt text along with computer vision and the page's own content to understand an image, and it warns against filling alt attributes with keywords. Both points lead to the same rule: describe the image accurately for a person who can't see it.
When a keyword fits, and when it doesn't
"Technician replacing a water heater in a garage" is a good description. If the job was in Henderson and that matters to the page, "in a Henderson garage" is still honest. "Water heater Henderson best water heater company Las Vegas" is not a description. It fails the people who rely on alt text and gains you nothing.
Decorative images get empty alt text
Background flourishes, divider graphics, and stock textures should use an empty alt attribute so screen readers skip them. Not every image needs words.
Captions and the copy around the image
Google's guidance asks that images be placed near relevant text, on pages about the same subject. In practice, the paragraph beside a photo and its visible caption do more to explain it than any hidden attribute. A caption like "Kitchen backsplash, Green Valley, finished in two days" helps the reader and gives the image context at the same time. A gallery page with forty unlabeled photos and no text gives search engines very little to go on.
Text baked into images and infographics
Words inside a graphic are a weak signal. Google's advice is to avoid putting important text, such as headings and menu items, inside images, because not everyone can read it and translation tools can't touch it. Search engines may pick up some of that text through image recognition, but you can't count on it, and neither can a visitor using a screen reader.
Infographics: publish the text too
If you make an infographic, put its key points in real HTML on the same page, as a short summary or list below the graphic. The image stays shareable and the information stays readable.
Watch out for CSS background images
Google has said it doesn't index images added through CSS. If a photo matters, like your storefront or a finished project, place it with a standard image element and give it alt text. This is a common gap in template-built sites, and it is one of the things we check during SEO-focused web design.
Image sitemaps and structured data
An image sitemap lists image URLs that Google might not otherwise find. In 2022 Google stopped using several optional image sitemap tags, including caption, title, and geographic location, and the image location tag is what remains. So a sitemap can help Google find images. It is not a place to add keywords.
Structured data points to your preferred image
Schema markup for an article, product, or local business can name an image to represent the page. Google suggests choosing one that doesn't rely on text. Whether markup is valid, and whether images are being crawled at all, are both things a technical SEO audit will show.
Video: titles, descriptions, and transcripts
For video, Google recommends giving each watch page its own title and description, and using video structured data with a distinct name, description, and thumbnail for each video. It also suggests a dedicated page per video where that makes sense for the business.
Put the transcript on the page
A transcript or captions make the video usable for people who can't or won't play sound, and a transcript on the page is plain text that search engines read like any other copy. For a service business, a two-minute walkthrough plus its transcript often makes a better page than either one alone.
Photos on your business profile
On a Google Business Profile, the people choosing who to call judge your photos by what they show. Real, recent photos of your work and location beat stock images with clever file names every time. We cover that in more detail under Google Business Profile optimization.
A short order of operations
- Rename new images descriptively before upload.
- Write alt text that describes the image; leave decorative images empty.
- Add a caption or nearby sentence that explains why the image is there.
- Move important words out of graphics and into page text.
- Give videos a unique title, description, and on-page transcript.
- Check that images use standard HTML elements and that structured data is valid.
If you are working through the rest of your local setup, pair this with our Henderson local SEO checklist, or browse the other SEO insights for local businesses. If you would rather have someone do it, our Henderson SEO team can take a look. The contact page explains what happens after you reach out.
Questions we hear from business owners
Should every image on my site have a keyword in the alt text?
No. Alt text should describe the image for someone who can't see it. If the accurate description naturally includes a service or place name, include it. If it doesn't, forcing one in makes the page worse for screen reader users and doesn't help you.
Is it worth renaming images that are already on my site?
Usually it is a low priority. Renaming changes the image URL, so you need to update every reference to it. Get the naming right on new uploads, and fix old files only when you are already rebuilding a page.
Do I need an image sitemap?
Most small business sites don't, because Google finds images through normal page crawling. An image sitemap helps when images load in ways crawlers might miss or live on a separate domain such as a CDN. If you do use one, the image location tag is the one Google still supports.
Will adding video help my local rankings?
Video can help people decide to call, which is the point. Whether it changes rankings depends on the page and the market, and nobody can promise that. Give each video a clear title, a description, and a transcript on the page so the content is readable as text.