Text und Fotografie: Nadine Wilmanns
How Images Improve Search Visibility
“The question is: What do my clients need to be saying to be found on Google and AI — and does it align with the business? If you’re not showing in search, you don’t have a brand.”
(SEO expert Dillan Gandhi, Searchlight London)
As a photographer and videographer based in London and South Germany, I spend a lot of time thinking about how images show up online, not just how they look, but how they perform. Of course, there is the visual aspect: people enjoy looking at a website that is visually pleasing. Then there are various psychological factors like people buy from people (meaning they want to see the person or team behind the business), or professional perception (people judge a company`s professionalism based on the quality of their imagery), or emotional connection (photos and videos create emotions which are the main driver for sales).
Dillan Gandhi
However, a smart use of images can make a huge difference when it comes to SEO, meaning whether a business can be found online when someone searches using relevant search terms. I asked an expert: Dillan Gandhi of Searchlight London, SEO and digital marketing specialist: How can images improve your visibility in search?
With two decades of experience across retail, hospitality, finance, and technology — and a track record that delivered a 17x average return for clients in 2025 — Dillan Gandhi knows what it takes to turn online visibility into real commercial results. And it starts with something most people overlook entirely: how you handle your images. Here’s what he wants you to know.
1. Resize before you upload
Uploading a 24MB high resolution file straight to your website is one of the most common — and costly — mistakes businesses make. Bloated images slow your site down, and slow sites lose visitors fast. Page speed is still an important ranking and user experience factor.
Gandhi’s rule of thumb: resize so the longest edge is no longer than 2,000 pixels before you upload. Most platforms will handle the remaining optimisation. Therefore, photographers usually supply both photos that are web optimized and the same ones in full resolution.
By the way: Many platforms like Squarespace and WordPress compress automatically, but they can’t fix an image that was already way too large to begin with. Do it yourself first.
2. Name your files properly
That file called IMG_4872.jpg? Google can see it — and it tells Google absolutely nothing. Gandhi’s advice: name your image files with your name and, if you want to be associated with a particular area of expertise, include that too. In my case for example, something like nadine-wilmanns-photographer-videographer.jpg gives Google real context about who you are and what you do, before it even looks at the image.
This matters because Google crawls the original file name. A descriptive file name is free SEO, so why waste it.
3. Give your images a title
Beyond the file name, every image on your website has a title field. This is another often missed opportunity to tell Google what your image is about and where you want to be found.
4. Write an alt tag every single time
Alt tags are descriptions of your image that help Google understand what it’s looking at. Gandhi has a simple way to think about them: imagine you’re describing the photo to someone who can’t see it. What would you say? That’s your alt tag. It doesn’t need to be clever or keyword-stuffed — it just needs to be accurate and specific.
Example: Instead of leaving it blank or writing “photo”, try: “Optician in her shop in South London.” Alt tags also make your website more accessible — good for your visitors and your credibility. When writing an alt tag, don`t “cheat” and fill in keywords instead of a true description: alt text should describe the image naturally first, not primarily be written for SEO.
5. Don`t skip the caption
Captions are another often overlooked field in image SEO. Google reads them and uses them to build a fuller picture of what your page is about. A good caption gives context that neither the file name nor the alt tag can fully provide. It also helps your human visitors: people often read captions before they read body text. Fill them out. Every time.
The bigger picture: Google and AI systems now understand context, intent, entities, and semantic relevance much better than before. So keywords alone are less powerful than they used to be when it comes to how Google ranks content. What Google wants is relevance — and the more context you give it through titles, alt tags, captions, and file names, the better it understands what you’re about and who you should be showing up for.
6. Show how the sausage is made
When everyone in your industry has a website showing the same polished results — the perfect final shot, the finished product — the businesses that stand out are the ones willing to show behind the scenes. Gandhi puts it simply: “Many show the finished sausage. I would show how the sausage is made.” Behind-the-scenes images, process shots, and real moments don’t just make you more interesting — they make you more trustworthy. And trust, Gandhi notes, is what actually drives conversions: “People trust the face. If they see a real person, it assures them that if things ever should go wrong, they would be able to track you down.”
You see: your images aren’t just decoration. Used well — and set up correctly — they are drivers of engagement and conversion, trust signals, and search real estate all at once.
Dillan Gandhi is a digital marketing strategist and SEO consultant, as well as the founder of Searchlight London. In his latest offer, ‘SEO Essentials’, Dillan Gandhi focuses on the technical foundations that help businesses improve visibility across Google and AI-driven search — from site performance and indexing to search-ready content structure. Find out more here: www.searchlight.london/services/seo-essentials/
As an international photographer and videographer based in the UK and Germany, I create authentic visual content for brands, businesses, and entrepreneurs.
You can find more about my business offer here:
www.nadinewilmanns.com/business-offer
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