Ranking for a word when your image is showing up as #2?

[mr_w]

I'm trying to rank for several specific words in my industry. I've noticed that many of the pages I'm trying to rank for the specific words, the main image of the page is being ranked. So my question is should I still try to rank my page even though the image is ranking as the first image displayed in the google results. Will this count against me by Google if I do? Or should I try to make the image being ranked more enticing for google searchers to try to increase traffic? Right now the images are not generating many clicks.

[EGOL]

Should I still try to rank my page even though the image is ranking as the first image displayed in the google results.

Absolutely YES.  I have lots of first image in the SERPs and first listing in the organics.  Both of these bring traffic.  That traffic is generally not as valuable as traffic from organic web search but you can still make money from it.  (Visitors to Google image search are given the option to view your image or visit your page.  Sometimes when they view your image that viewing is done on Google's website, sometimes the visitor is moved to your website.  Google is known sometimes to frame your website within Google image search.  Google changes how image search works from time to time and some of their configurations produce almost no traffic for the owner of the image.)

Will this count against me by Google if I do?

Absolutely NOT.   It may actually increase your opportunities.  You then have great content from web search and great content from image search.  They should want to show that page to everyone!

Or should I try to make the image being ranked more enticing for google searchers to try to increase traffic?

Absolutely NOT.   Get two images on that page and attack with both.  Three would be better.  Four or five, better still.

As in other things, much of this depends upon how much time you have to spend on it, how valuable the traffic might be and whether you are reaching for the competitor's throat or farting around.