How to Name Your Image Files for SEO in WordPress

Do you want to know how to name image files for SEO?

Properly naming your image file helps Google better understand your website and, as a result, your website could get better rankings in search results.

In this article, we’ll show you how to name your image files for SEO in WordPress. 

So let's dig in.

Before going further, let's see why the title of your image is important for SEO. 

Is Image Title Important for SEO?

Yes, the image title is important because it helps your readers and Google understand what the image is about.

Here’s what Google has to say about it.

“Like many of the other parts of the page targeted for optimization, filenames are best when they're short, but descriptive.”

This means you need to make sure your image title should be descriptive and easy to understand so that readers and Google have a clear idea of the image’s content. 

How to Name Image Files for SEO

Here are a few things that you need to keep an eye on when choosing an image file name and make your website more SEO-friendly.

1. Find a Relevant Image

Before giving a name to any image, you need to make sure the image you have chosen is the right fit for the section where you want to add it. Even if you have a good name for an image that is not relevant, your readers will find it difficult to make sense of your choice. 

While it is always great to have a customized image, chances are you do not always have the time to come up with a great-looking graphic. In such cases, you can opt for:

• Images released under Creative Commons (CC) license.
• Search Flickr (but remember to ask permission before using an image)
• Use websites like Unsplash that offer free images.

When using any image, make sure you have permission to use it. It is always a good practice to check the license to see if you can use the image or modify it.

Let's assume the article you have written is about WordPress SEO, and you selected the image name wordpress-seo. But the image you chose is generic and not directly related to WordPress SEO.

Choose a simple name that describes the image, like: search-engine-logos. And avoid adding keywords that are unrelated to the image.

2. Set SEO Friendly Image File Name

Choosing the right image file is only half the battle, naming it is another equally important part of image SEO optimization.

For example, let's take a look at the below image. What would be the best file name for it?

Bad Image Name Example: 

• 324oiu98.jpg
• Dslkjdklfj.jpg
• AIOSEO-dashboard-image-is-here-download-it-now.jpg

Good Image Name Example:

• aioseo-dashboard.jpg
• dashboard-aioseo.jpg

3. Avoid Underscores and Use Dashes Instead

Did you know Google doesn't recommend using underscores?

You've read it right… when you name your image files, it's always recommended to choose dashes or hyphens instead of underscores. And use lower-case letters only.

See the example below:

• Good Practice: google-image-seo
• Bad Practice: Google_Image_SEO

Bonus Tip: Don't Forget the Alt Text

Adding Alt text to your images is the best way to convey your message to search engine spiders. Google recommends that the Alt text should be present for each image, and it should describe the image.

Most importantly, Alt text offers another opportunity to target the keywords phrases and thus help improve image optimization. For more details, please visit how to write Alt text for images for SEO. 

In the example below, we've navigated to an image in our WordPress media library. The “Alternative Text” field is empty and needs to be filled in.

In the above image, you can see the Alt Text option that appears for every image. Here you can add a description of the image.

SEO is a serious game, and image optimization is an important aspect of making your website SEO friendly and getting more targeted traffic. 

For easy WordPress SEO optimization, you can try AIOSEO, the best WordPress SEO plugin on the planet. 

We hope you learned how to name image files for SEO, optimize them for your websites.

You may also want to check out our ultimate WordPress SEO guide.

What are you waiting for? Get started with the most powerful WordPress AIOSEO plugin today. 

Saud Razzak

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