Product image optimization and AI alt texts

Supplier photos rarely look the same. One has a wide white border, the next is a tall portrait shot, a third is a heavy file of several megabytes. Put them side by side on a category page and the grid looks restless, while the heavy files slow your webshop down. Many photos also go out without an alt text, so search engines and screen readers do not know what is on them. With the image settings in StoreLinkr you decide once how every product photo looks when it reaches your webshop and marketplaces, and the AI Agent can write an alt text for every photo. Your original photos always stay as they are.

Why consistent product photos matter on webshops and marketplaces

Shoppers judge a product by its photo before they read a word. A category page where every product has the same frame, the same white margin and the same size looks calm and professional, and makes products easy to compare. When your photos come from several suppliers, that consistency is hard to get by hand: you would have to edit every image before uploading it, and do it again with every new delivery.

• The same frame everywhere: a fixed aspect ratio gives every photo the same shape, so the product tiles in your webshop line up neatly.
• The product in focus: trimming the white border makes the product larger in the photo, instead of a small item in a sea of white.
• Faster pages: smaller files load faster. That helps visitors on a mobile connection and stops heavy supplier photos from slowing down your category pages.
• Marketplace rules: marketplaces set their own requirements for product images, often a white background around the product. Padding with white helps there, but always check the rules of each channel.

What each setting does

You find the settings under Settings > Images. You switch every option on or off separately:

• Trim white space: removes the white border around the product, so the product appears larger. Useful for supplier photos with a lot of white space.
• Aspect ratio: keep the original, or choose square (1:1), landscape (4:3) or portrait (3:4). With a fixed ratio the product is centred and padded with white, so all photos have the same size.
• White margin: with a fixed ratio you set the space between the product and the edge of the photo, from 0% to 20%. The default is 4%.
• Maximum size: the longest side of the photo, from 600 to 3000 px, with 1200 px as the default. With a fixed ratio this is also the size of the photo. When you keep the original ratio, smaller photos are never enlarged.
• Compress photos: makes files smaller without visible loss of quality. You choose a quality from 50 to 95, where 80 is a good balance between quality and file size. The file type stays the same.

Below the settings, a preview shows a few of your own product photos twice: the original and how it looks with your settings. The preview updates as soon as you change something, before you save, so you can try options without changing a single export.

AI alt texts for SEO and accessibility

An alt text describes a photo for search engines and for visitors who use a screen reader. Writing one for every photo of every product is work that rarely gets done, so many webshops leave the field empty or repeat the product name on every image. The StoreLinkr AI Agent can do it for you:

• With every enrichment: switch on Let AI write alt texts and the AI writes a separate alt text for every photo whenever a product is enriched, based on the product data. Alt texts you wrote yourself are kept: the AI only fills photos that have none.
• For one product: on a PIM product, the Alt texts with AI button writes a new alt text for every photo of that product, also when the automatic option is off. After you confirm, all alt texts of that product are replaced, including your own, and you can still adjust each one by hand.
• A different text per photo: the AI does not look at the photo itself. It writes from the name, brand, category and description of the product, and never names a colour, angle or background that the product data does not state. Every photo gets a short text of its own, in the language you chose in the AI settings.

The alt texts use your AI Agent, connected with your own key for Gemini, OpenAI or Claude. For a WooCommerce webshop, new AI alt texts go to photos that are already in your shop right away. Other webshops and marketplaces receive them the next time the photo is exported. A good alt text helps search engines understand your images and makes your shop usable for more visitors, but no tool can promise a position in image search.

How it works without touching your originals

StoreLinkr keeps every original photo as it is. Our CDN applies the settings at the moment an integration fetches the photo for your webshop or a marketplace. That has a few practical consequences:

• You can change a setting at any time, or switch everything off, and your source photos are still there. With every option off, a photo goes out exactly as it is.
• The settings apply to every export, to webshops on WooCommerce, Shopify or SitePack as well as to marketplaces.
• They apply to photos exported from now on. Photos that are already in your webshop are not uploaded again automatically.
• StoreLinkr does not remove backgrounds and does not generate or edit the product itself: it trims white borders, pads with white, resizes and compresses.

Want to exclude a supplier photo or add your own? That is done per product, see exclude and add product images. Want better product texts as well? AI product enrichment completes names, descriptions and attributes from the EAN.

Set it up in five steps

1. Go to Settings > Images in StoreLinkr.
2. Switch on trimming if your supplier photos have wide white borders, and choose an aspect ratio, for example square (1:1).
3. Set the white margin and the maximum size, or keep the defaults of 4% and 1200 px.
4. Switch on compression, start with quality 80 and check the preview with your own photos. Then click Save.
5. To have alt texts written, connect the AI Agent with your own key under Settings > AI and switch on Let AI write alt texts. For existing products, use the Alt texts with AI button on the product, or enrich them again.