Displaying subcategory links and their images on the category page can offer several SEO benefits:

1. Improved Internal Linking: By displaying links to subcategories directly on the category page, you create a network of internal links. This enhances the crawlability of your website by search engine bots, helping them discover and index more pages on your site.
2. Enhanced Keyword Targeting: Each subcategory link acts as an anchor text opportunity, allowing you to use relevant keywords in the anchor text. This helps search engines understand the content of the linked pages and can positively impact your site's rankings for those keywords.
3. Increased Time on Site: Providing easy navigation to subcategories encourages users to explore more pages on your website. This can increase the average time spent on your site, which is a positive user engagement signal for search engines.
4. Reduced Bounce Rate: If users find relevant subcategories quickly and easily, they're less likely to bounce back to search engine results. This indicates to search engines that your site is providing valuable and relevant content, potentially improving your rankings.
5. Rich Snippets Potential: Including images alongside subcategory links can make your search results more visually appealing. This can increase click-through rates (CTR) and potentially lead to the display of rich snippets in search results, such as image thumbnails.
6. Structured Data Markup: Properly structured category pages with subcategory links and images can be marked up with structured data. This helps search engines understand the hierarchy and organization of your site's content, potentially leading to enhanced search engine features like site links.
7. Increased Relevance and Authority: By providing a clear hierarchy of categories and subcategories, you establish topical relevance and authority within your niche. This can strengthen your overall SEO efforts and improve your site's visibility in search results.

Overall, displaying subcategory links and images on the category page can contribute to a more user-friendly and SEO-friendly website, leading to improved rankings, traffic, and user engagement.