Alt text and surrounding copy are not the only signals Google uses to rank an image. Embedded metadata — the title, description, copyright, and keywords stored inside the file — travels with the asset everywhere it is reused. Setting those fields correctly is the single highest-leverage thing most teams skip in their image SEO checklist.
Google Images extracts more than alt text from a result. It reads the surrounding HTML, structured data, and — increasingly important — fields embedded directly in the file: ImageDescription, Title, Copyright, Artist, and IPTC keywords. When your CMS strips metadata on upload or your image pipeline re-encodes WebP without preserving it, you give up a free ranking signal that competitors who ship clean files keep.
Focus on five fields. Title (a short, descriptive name), Description / ImageDescription (one sentence describing what is shown), Keywords (5–8 relevant terms, no stuffing), Copyright (your brand and year), and Artist (the creator or brand). For commerce, include the SKU or model in the description; for editorial, include the location or subject.
Export your images, drop them into the MediaMeta bulk editor, set global defaults for copyright and artist, then customise titles and descriptions per file from the filename. Process the batch and download a ZIP that is ready to upload to your CMS. The same workflow handles 10 files or 1,000 — no command line.
Do not stuff fifty keywords into the IPTC Keywords field — Google ignores irrelevant terms and may downgrade the asset. Do not paste the same description into every file. Do not skip the Copyright field, especially if your images are licensed: it is what shows up in Google's image licensing surface. And do not assume your CDN preserves metadata; check the output with the metadata viewer.