SEO Tips: Optimization of Images
SEO is an indispensable part of a successful website: if you have interesting and unique content, the number of visitors and followers will constantly grow improving your site ranking in search results.
You probably know all the tips for writing good content and remember the necessity to use SEO-friendly URLs.
SEO is where everything matters: every element of your website can be used to make it hit the top 10 of search engine results.
Today we want to focus on images and the ways they can and should be optimized.
Basic Rules of Image Choice
- Use images relevant to your target audience
- Use images relevant to the text they are inserted into – strange as it is, but this simple rule is often overlooked. Irrelevant images distract attention and irritate visitors.
- Use high-quality images
- Use standard formats. The most common formats are .jpg, .gif, and .png. Using them you will avoid any problems with viewing and sharing images.
Optimization of Images for Search Engines
First, pay attention to file name. Be sure to use your keywords in the file name: no need to say that if you own a sample sales website offering shoes, then the images should be named like manolo_blahnik36.jpg instead of img7.jpg. If your website is dedicated to flowers, be sure to provide unique names for all the images describing various flowers. This is called focus keyword usage.
The same rule works with text surrounding images – when you provide an appropriate description of the image in the surrounding text, search engines will find you faster thanks to the keywords. You should also consider situations when images cannot be shown in a browser. An efficient way to overcome possible problems is to add descriptive text to the image Alt attribute.
Another way to improve your site ranking is to have external links from other sites to the page your image is on. This will also help search engines find your images.
Of course, fulfilling all these procedures will take your time and effort, but the reward is worth it. We hope that the tips provided above show you that some small adjustments to your image optimization can improve search visibility, as well as, a better user experience for visitors to your website.
