Google can't see your photos
Google can't look at a photo of a finished roof and know it's a roof, let alone a roof in Waukesha. It reads the text attached to the image instead: the file name and the alt text. Alt text (short for alternative text) is a one-line description stored in your site's code. Screen readers speak it aloud for blind visitors, browsers show it when an image fails to load, and Google uses it to figure out what the picture shows and what your page is about.
For a service business this matters more than most owners think. Your photos are your proof. A gallery of real jobs is often the strongest page on the site, and Google Images sends real traffic to visual trades. People search things like paver patio ideas or cedar fence styles and click through to whoever shows up. If your work photos have no alt text, you're not in that race at all.
Most local sites fail this check. Photos get uploaded straight off a phone as IMG_4032.jpg with the alt field empty, so the best evidence on the site is invisible to the search engine. The fix costs nothing and takes about 30 minutes.
Write alt text that works: the 10-second formula
Describe the photo the way you'd describe it to someone on the phone: what it is, what you did, and where, if the job was actually there. Keep it under about 125 characters. Screen readers tend to break longer descriptions into awkward chunks, and anything past that starts reading like keyword stuffing anyway.
Some before-and-after examples:
- Empty alt becomes: New architectural shingle roof on a two-story colonial in Brookfield, WI
- "furnace" becomes: Technician installing a high-efficiency furnace in a Pewaukee basement
- "deck" becomes: Cedar deck with built-in bench seating after staining, Delafield backyard
- "plumber Waukesha best plumber near me" is spam. Write: Repiped copper water lines in a 1970s ranch home in Waukesha
Skip phrases like "image of" or "photo of". Google and screen readers already know it's an image. Start with the subject.
Where the alt text field hides in your builder
Once you know where the field is, each image takes about ten seconds. Here's the path in the four builders we see most:
- WordPress: Dashboard > Media > Library > click the image > fill the Alternative Text box at the top of the details panel. For images already placed in a page, also click the image in the page editor and set Alt text in the block settings on the right.
- Wix: open the Editor > click the image > Settings > scroll to the Alt text field (Wix labels it "What's in the image? Tell Google") > type your line and publish.
- Squarespace: click the image block > click the pencil to edit > Content tab > fill the Alternative text field > save and publish.
- GoDaddy Websites + Marketing: Edit Website > click the image > in the panel that opens, fill the field labeled Image description or Alt text (the wording varies by template) > publish.
Heads up for WordPress: changing alt text in the Media Library does not update copies of that image already sitting in pages. Fix those in the page editor too.
Find every image that's missing alt text
Don't guess which images you missed. Two free tools will hand you the full list.
For a small site, use WAVE at wave.webaim.org. Paste a page URL and it marks every missing alt with a red icon, right on the page. No signup, no install. Run it on your home page, each service page, and your gallery.
For a bigger site, download Screaming Frog SEO Spider from screamingfrog.co.uk. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs, which covers almost any local business site. Enter your domain, let the crawl finish, then go to Bulk Export > Images > Images Missing Alt Text. You get a spreadsheet of every image without alt text and the page it lives on. That spreadsheet is your punch list.
Work the list in money order: home page first, then service pages, then the gallery, then everything else.
Name the files right and make it a habit
The file name is the second label Google reads, so rename photos before you upload them. deck-staining-delafield-wi.jpg beats IMG_4032.jpg every time. Use lowercase letters with hyphens between words and keep it short.
Then build the habit for new work: after each job, before the photos go on the site, rename the file and write the one-line alt. That's maybe 30 extra seconds per photo, and every image you add from now on pulls its weight.
A few things to avoid while you're at it:
- Don't repeat your city in every alt on the same page. Use it where it's true and natural, skip it elsewhere.
- Don't bake your phone number or offer text into the image itself. Google mostly can't read text inside a picture.
- Purely decorative images (divider graphics, background textures) should have an empty alt field on purpose, so screen readers skip them.
- Your logo's alt is just your business name plus the word logo. Nothing fancy.