Guide · 7 min · Updated 20/05/2026
Image SEO in 2026: alt text, sitemaps, formats
Image SEO drives ~3% of organic traffic for most sites. For visual categories (recipes, products, design), it can be 20%+.
Format hierarchy
AVIF first (best compression), WebP fallback (broadest support), JPEG as final fallback. Use `<picture>` with `srcset` for responsive delivery.
Alt-text patterns
Describe the image's role in the page's purpose. 'Red running shoes' is not as useful as 'Red Nike Pegasus 40 running shoes on grey concrete' for a PDP.
Common questions
Do I need an image sitemap?
For sites where images are primary content (recipes, e-commerce, design), yes. For text-led sites, no — Google discovers via the standard sitemap.