Alt text is the most impactful image SEO field. Be specific: "red ceramic coffee mug on white background" beats "mug". Google reads it to understand image content, and it improves accessibility scores.

The EXIF ImageDescription and title fields are read by search engines. Match them to your target keyword for the page the image appears on. One clear, relevant phrase is ideal.

GPS coordinates embedded in EXIF help your images appear in Google Maps and local image searches. Critical for restaurants, hotels, real estate. Most competitors skip this entirely.

"DSC00432.jpg" has zero SEO value. "blue-ceramic-coffee-mug.jpg" tells search engines exactly what the image is. Rename with target keywords, separated by hyphens.

Embedding copyright signals to Google you are the original creator — helping fight duplicate content issues when images are copied to other sites without permission.

For news, events, and time-sensitive content, accurate EXIF date metadata helps images appear in Google's "Recently Uploaded" filter. Freshness is a ranking signal.

EXIF keyword metadata supports multiple terms. Use 5–10 highly relevant keywords. Combined with alt text, they build a richer topical signal than alt text alone.

Google's Quality Rater Guidelines emphasize Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust. Named author metadata supports E-E-A-T — especially important in health, finance, and legal niches.

Page speed is a direct ranking factor. A perfectly tagged 2MB image underperforms a well-tagged 150KB image. Compress after exporting using Squoosh or TinyPNG.

An image sitemap tells Google exactly which images are on your site. Combined with tagged images, this alone can drive 20–30% more image search traffic.