Image & Video SEO

Image and video results are search surfaces of their own (image packs, video results, key-moment deep links, Discover cards, visual search with Google Lens) and for some niches (recipes, fashion, tutorials, repair, products) they out-deliver the blue links. Google's AI features pull in images and video too: its May 2026 AI optimization guide says that if you already follow image and video SEO best practices, "you're already optimizing for generative AI search." This guide treats media as first-class search content rather than page decoration.

Image SEO#

The signals engines read#

Engines understand images better every year, but they still lean heavily on surrounding evidence:

Signal	Optimization
Alt text	Describe the image accurately and specifically; include the keyword only when it genuinely describes the image
Filename	`espresso-grind-size-chart.webp`, not `IMG_4302.jpg`
Surrounding text	Captions and adjacent paragraphs anchor the image's meaning
Page context	Images rank with help from the page's own relevance and quality
Preferred image	`og:image` or schema.org `primaryImageOfPage` tells Google which image represents the page

A fully-optimized image

<figure>
  <img
    src="/images/espresso-grind-size-chart.webp"
    alt="Chart comparing espresso extraction yield across five grind sizes"
    width="1200"
    height="675"
    loading="lazy"
  />
  <figcaption>Finer grinds extract faster, until they channel.</figcaption>
</figure>

Choose your preferred image#

On March 2, 2026 Google clarified that it uses both schema.org markup and the og:image meta tag when choosing the thumbnail for a page in Search and Discover. Pick an image that is relevant and representative, high resolution, and not an extreme aspect ratio. Don't use your site logo. (One exception to know: the image property in Recipe markup is used only for recipe rich results, not the text-result thumbnail, per a June 2025 clarification.)

Technical delivery#

Performance is ranking-relevant (Core Web Vitals) and indexing-relevant:

Modern formats (WebP/AVIF, both supported by Google Search) with responsive srcset. Next.js <Image> automates both.
Lazy-load below the fold only, never the LCP or hero image. Lighthouse 13 (October 2025) dropped its old "offscreen images" audit and folded format, compression and sizing checks into one Improve image delivery insight, so look there rather than for the old audit names.
Stable URLs: reference each image by one consistent URL. Re-uploading images to new URLs makes Google rediscover them from scratch.
Image sitemaps (or images in your regular sitemap) help discovery for image-heavy sites, and may list images hosted on a CDN domain.
Don't block image CDNs or paths in robots.txt. Blocked images can't rank.

Discover images#

Google Discover is image-led. Google's requirements for its large cards: images at least 1200px wide, over 300,000 total pixels, ideally 16:9, plus the max-image-preview:large robots setting (or AMP). Avoid logos and text-heavy images as your preferred image.

<meta name="robots" content="max-image-preview:large" />

Visual search and AI images#

People increasingly search with images: Google Lens, Circle to Search, image uploads in the Search box, Chrome's "Search this image". On September 24, 2026 Search Console added a multimodal search type filter to the Performance and Generative AI reports so you can see this traffic. What wins here is the same as above: clear, original photos of the actual product or thing, on a page that explains it.

If you publish AI-generated images, label them:

Google's generative AI guidance suggests adding image metadata to give context on how an image was made. For ecommerce, Merchant Center requires AI-generated images to carry the IPTC DigitalSourceType value TrainedAlgorithmicMedia.
Google reads C2PA provenance metadata for its "About this image" feature (documented November 2024).
Fact-check AI-written alt text. Since October 1, 2026 Google's guidance explicitly lists image alt text among the metadata to review before publishing. See AI-Assisted Content Without Penalties.

Video SEO#

Where video ranks#

Video appears in main-SERP video results, the Videos tab, key-moment deep links, Discover, AI Overviews and on YouTube itself. Strategy differs by goal: YouTube rankings build an audience on YouTube; self-hosted watch pages capture traffic to your site. Many teams do both: YouTube for reach, embedded on their own optimized page for site value. Ranking on YouTube itself has its own guide: YouTube SEO.

On-page requirements#

For video on your own pages, Google's video docs set the bar:

A dedicated watch page where the video is the main content. A blog post or product page with an embedded video doesn't count as a watch page, and buried videos rarely earn video results.
A thumbnail Google can fetch (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG or AVIF, at least 60x30px) and a video file or embed Googlebot can access.
VideoObject markup. Required: name, thumbnailUrl, uploadDate. Everything else is recommended.

VideoObject JSON-LD

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "VideoObject",
  "name": "How to read a waterfall chart in DevTools",
  "description": "A 6-minute walkthrough of network waterfalls.",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://example.com/thumbs/waterfall.jpg",
  "uploadDate": "2026-04-12",
  "duration": "PT6M14S",
  "contentUrl": "https://example.com/videos/waterfall.mp4",
  "creator": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Jane Doe",
    "url": "https://example.com/authors/jane-doe"
  },
  "interactionStatistic": {
    "@type": "InteractionCounter",
    "interactionType": { "@type": "WatchAction" },
    "userInteractionCount": 12840
  }
}
</script>

On September 24, 2026 Google documented the creator property (the person or organization that made the video; author is also supported) and the supported interactionStatistic types: WatchAction, LikeAction, CommentAction and ShareAction. Only report numbers you actually have.

A transcript on the page is the single highest-value addition: it's indexable text the video alone isn't, it's accessibility, and it's quotable for AEO and GEO.
Key moments deep-link into the part of the video that answers a query. Enable them with Clip markup (labeled start and end times), SeekToAction markup (tell Google your timestamp URL pattern), or timestamps in a YouTube description.

YouTube basics#

Title front-loads the keyword promise; the first lines of the description carry the pitch (they show before "more"); chapters segment the content; a custom thumbnail wins the click. Viewer satisfaction weighs more than metadata, so the content itself is the real lever. Since July 29, 2026 you can add your YouTube channel to Search Console as a platform property to see how its content performs in Google Search and Discover. The full playbook is in YouTube SEO.

Measuring media performance#

Search Console > Performance: switch the search type to Image, Video or multimodal (September 2026) to isolate media traffic, or filter Search appearance by Videos in web results.
Video indexing report flags pages where Google found a video but didn't index it, with reasons (for example, the video isn't the main content).
Discover report shows card performance if your images qualify.
Image search traffic is high-volume and low-intent for some niches and conversion gold for others (products, recipes). Judge per business.

Next: SEO Copywriting, the writing craft behind pages that rank and get read.