A Picture Says A Thousand Words (And Helps You Rank In Google)

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Our Editorial Process - How We Write Our Technical Advice Articles

— 4-step process

01 Real questions answered by real SEO industry experts

We do not write about topics purely to chase rankings / organic visibility. Our subjects and articles come from real questions often asked by our clients. Our clients are often founders and in-house marketing teams. We also like to write content and share our opinions on real industry news and talking points. This includes LinkedIn talking points and recent Google updates. Our own team hits these questions by solving live problems on real campaigns. The substance of our articles comes from real work and real-time industry insights.

02 One of our SEO strategists writes the first draft

The first draft is written by a Senior member of our SEO team who lives and breathes SEO and client strategy. They write using three things, in this order. First, our own client campaign data and what we have seen work across more than 100 businesses. Second, official documentation from the source itself, like Google Search Central, the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, and other trusted platforms/publications. Third, reputable independent research and studies. When we give a number or make a claim, we share transparently where it comes from and link to the source so you can check it for yourself. We use AI as a tool to support our work, the way any modern search team does, but the expertise, the examples and the final words are our team's own opinions and views.

03 A second expert checks it and adds further insight

Before any article goes live, a second member has an opportunity to quality check it and add a second layer of expertise when applicable. On the second preview, we check three things. Firstly, that the advice is right and not over-simplified to the point of being misleading. Secondly, anything we say about how Google or a platform behaves is current and fairly described. Lastly, any advice we share matches our findings based on real time client work, not just theory. Our second team member has the option to send back the article for further editing. This may include asking for further evidence and clarification. Both experts must agree before any article goes live. This is the most important step in how we work. This is because we have removed the client services layer that most agencies put between you and the people executing real SEO strategies. the team member writing and checking our articles are real experts not proofreaders. The names of our team members who write and check each article will be transparently shown on each article.

04 We publish, review and periodically make fresh content updates to ensure ongoing accuracy

Each article shows who wrote it, who checked it, and the date it was last updated. The world of search changes constantly. Core updates land, features are deprecated, ranking signals shift, and best practices are rewritten more often in our field than almost any other. An article that was correct at publication can quickly become outdated. So we go back and review our advice on a regular basis. Typically, every 3 months. When applicable, our team updates the article to ensure real-time accuracy.

In SEO, keywords and backlinks often take centre stage, and for good reason, as they remain the foundational pillars of most ranking strategies. But in our experience, even with the best keywords and the strongest backlinks, there’s one factor that can still hold your rankings back: your website’s images.

As Google’s algorithms evolve, so too does its ability to interpret and evaluate visual content. Now, we’re seeing that image optimisation goes far beyond compression and img alt tags.

Now, context matters. Authenticity matters. User relevance matters.

We’ve found that simply adding the right image to the right page can improve your click-through rates and your user engagement, which can have a positive impact on your Google rankings. Images serve a far more operational purpose on your website than you may expect.

It’s important to establish here, at the outset, that we’re not talking about ranking in Google Images. Instead, we’re looking at how a strategically placed, contextually relevant image can help push rankings up – as it did for one of our client’s pages, which boosted from position #4 to #1 – and how you can use the same principles to achieve similar results, making your pages more clickable, more trustworthy, and ultimately, more visible.

Let’s dive into the case study, and see how this unfolded.

The Challenge

One of our clients had a well-optimised service page – one that was targeting the right keywords, had excellent on-page SEO and featured high-quality backlinks from highly relevant, niche websites. We even added internal links from supporting blog content.

Despite all of this, the page wouldn’t budge from position #4 in Google’s organic results. Naturally, we wanted to overcome this, and to push the page as high up the SERPs as possible.
So, we put on our investigator’s hats, seeking to find the root cause of this “ceiling”.

The Observation

While performing a manual Google search results check, we noticed a trend that every page ranking for the target search terms displayed a thumbnail image next to the listing.

We know from experience that improved click-through rates (CTR) can lead to higher rankings, especially when users consistently engage with a result. This was a great page we were working with, it simply wasn’t standing out visually.

A question then rose in our minds; What if we optimised the thumbnail image, in the same way you might optimise a Facebook sidebar ad or YouTube thumbnail?

What We Did

We analysed the top-ranking competitors and saw that they used real artwork of real products their users had created – not just photos of the products, but visually compelling mockups presented in lifestyle settings. More questions bubbled to the surface; If this was working for them, how might a similar tactic impact our client’s page?

We set to work, creating three high-quality images by applying our client’s artwork to 3D product mockup templates and placing them in realistic, textured backgrounds. These weren’t generic visuals, but vivid, professional, and contextually relevant.

Our images complete, we uploaded all three images to the service page, placing our preferred thumbnail image as the first image on the page, and setting that same image as the page thumbnail for internal linking elements.

Then, as is sometimes the case with SEO – we played the waiting game.

What Happened

Within 24 hours, Google updated the SERP to display our new image as the page thumbnail. The very next day, the page jumped from position #4 to #2. Over the following weeks, it climbed to position #1.
We’d achieved our goal – much to our client’s appreciation.
While it’s difficult to isolate click-through-rate metrics from the ranking jump, it was clear that the enhanced image had made a measurable difference. Whether it appealed more to users or aligned better with Google’s visual relevance model (or a combination of the two) it worked, and quickly.

Why It Worked

Much like a successful display ad, the image we used followed four key principles:

Clean – uncluttered and easy to scan
Clear – main subject is large and legible
Colourful – visually striking and vibrant
Contrasting – stands out from the plain SERP background

These principles don’t just make for attractive images – they make them effective, helping users notice, click, and stay. Even if your thumbnail doesn’t appear in the search results, the application of these principles can improve on-page engagement, which is another signal Google cares about.

How to Apply This to Your Site

No matter your industry, here’s what we recommend for image optimisation in 2025 and (at least for the time being) beyond:

Use Real Images of Real People Doing Real Work

Authentic visuals build trust. Whether it’s your team in action, your product in use, or real outputs from your service, these images are unique and contextually relevant – two things Google values when evaluating image content. They also contribute to your EEAT signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).

Avoid Stock Photography

Stock images are everywhere – and Google’s visual models can recognise them. Recycled visuals lower your page’s uniqueness, and often disengage users who’ve seen the same smiling model ten times elsewhere.

Be Cautious with AI-Generated Faces

AI-generated images of people are often less believable and may reduce trust. Google can detect them, and users can too. However, for product or object imagery, AI visuals can be more acceptable – especially in industries where image quality has traditionally been lower.

Use Lifestyle or Contextual Product Imagery

Don’t just show your product – show it in use. Whether it’s a digital mockup or a real photo, lifestyle imagery provides helpful context that improves both Google’s understanding and user engagement.

Prioritise Your Lead Image

Google often pulls the first image on your page to show as a thumbnail in search results. To improve your chances of controlling that:

Place a strong img tag high in the content
Use Open Graph tags (og:img) to define the preview image
Add ImageObject schema markup for better context

Also, remember: your lead image might also be used by social media platforms when the page is shared. Make it count.

Optimise for Speed and Core Web Vitals

Image performance affects SEO just as much as content does. Use:

WebP or AVIF formats for fast loading
Lazy loading (loading=”lazy”) for all non-critical images
Compression tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh
Mobile-responsive image delivery with srcset and sizes

These improvements help reduce load time and improve Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – a key metric in Google’s Core Web Vitals.

Ensure Your Images Are Niche-Relevant

It’s true that not all industries lend themselves to dynamic, exciting images. In these cases, we’ve seen that it’s a common pitfall to lean on generic imagery like forests and skylines to inject personality into a brand. While this may bring the perception of style to your site, when your website’s imagery doesn’t reflect what you actually offer, it can confuse both users and search engines. This disconnect can lead to lower engagement, ultimately damaging your organic search performance.

Final Thoughts

In our experience, we’ve seen that ranking success today depends not just on your words, but on the whole user experience – including the images you choose. With the right visuals, your content doesn’t just look better, it has the capacity to perform better, with images acting as trust signals, relevance indicators and conversion catalysts.

When chosen with intention and optimised with strategy, a picture can say a thousand words…and help you rank in Google. If your content is battling for the top spot, a simple shift in visuals might just be the edge you need to win.