Image SEO
Make the images already on your site findable and fast, instead of dead weight Google skips past.
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Most sites already have the images. What is missing is fifteen minutes of housekeeping on each one, and that fifteen minutes is the difference between an image that helps a page rank and one Google quietly ignores.
None of this needs a plugin or a redesign. Work through the steps in order, on one page at a time, and move on once it is done.
Name the file before you upload it
Rename it to what it actually shows, hyphens between words, before it goes anywhere near your site: "hand-painted-ceramic-mug-blue.jpg", not "IMG_4821.jpg". Google reads the filename as part of what the image is about, and so does anyone who saves it to their own computer.
Write alt text that describes the image, not the keyword you want to rank for
Say what is actually in the picture, in a normal sentence: "Blue ceramic mug with a hand-painted rim, sitting on a wooden table." Alt text exists for people using a screen reader first and search engines second. Stuffing it with keywords fails both jobs at once.
Resize it before you compress it
Upload the image at the size it will actually display, not the size it came out of your phone or camera at. A photo rendered at 800px wide on the page has no business being a 4000px file: every extra pixel is weight the page has to load for nothing anyone can see.
Compress it, and use a modern format
Run it through a free compressor like Squoosh or TinyPNG and export as WebP where you can. This is usually the single biggest page-speed win available on an existing page, and page speed is itself a ranking factor.
Let below-the-fold images load lazily
Add loading="lazy" to any image the visitor has to scroll to see. The images in the first screenful should load straight away; everything after that can wait until it is actually needed.
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