The reports are in. Visual images do have an impact on SEO. In fact, 32% of marketers claim that they are the most important type of content for their business.
So, the question isn’t can they have an impact? The question is what steps do I need to take in order for them to have an impact?
You’re in luck. That’s what this short article is all about—the use of visual images to improve your SEO. So, get out your website and a sharp chisel. We’re about to take your pages to a whole new level.
Read on.
Search engines don’t rank your images. Not yet anyway. Technology now exists that can match things in your images to other images on the internet. That same technology can guide you to the proper online store to buy a rug that you spotted on Pinterest.
What it can’t do is tell whether an image is breathtakingly lovely or undeniably rancid. That decision is left for humans alone.
How images affect search engines is twofold. First, they look at the words around the image and in the image’s metadata. This information tells them whether your image is related to a given search query.
The closer it matches the query, the higher your page is ranked for that given query.
The other way your pictures, videos, and infographics affect your SEO is through indirect metrics.
For instance, if your image files are huge, they’ll take a long time to load on mobile devices. This leads to a lot of page bounces which decreases your page rank score. Gorgeous photos, however, will increase the time visitors spend on your page, increasing your page rank.
If your thinking about using images to create a successful business website, start with the alt tags. These tags are hidden in the HTML code. They tell the search engine what the image is and why it matters.
Use this dedicated are to support the focus of your page. If your page is about dog health, and you include a photo of a labradoodle. Appropriate alt text may say something like Curly, the 5-month-old labradoodle with cancer.
Note: If you don’t know how to adjust the alt text on your images, you can use a free plugin. Our favorite is Yoast SEO plugin. Also, readers love people images. Be sure to include some.
The more visitors like your graphics, the longer they’re likely to stay on your site. This metric is called dwell time. It’s used by search engines to assess your site’s value to visitors.
One way to improve it is to create stunning images. And yes, manufacturing them is completely appropriate and often preferable.
So, brush off your Photoshop skills, open Poster Creator, and get to work. It’s time to craft something inspiring.
Smaller files load faster and reduce bounce rates. The inverse is also true. If you want to improve your SEO, balance your picture quality with its size. Remember, you’re shooting for optimizing your site for mobile devices.
Once you dial in your visual images, check your other SEO. Two of the largest SEO trends of 2019 include local SEO and voice search SEO. Make sure to include both types in your current site to ramp up your page rank.
If you found this information valuable, pop over to our vast library full of similar web design and web development articles.
So long and good luck!