“A picture is worth a thousand words” sure, this adage is true and so is the fact that images make a quarter of a web page weight in terms of data. Not only images make a page interesting and complete the story, but they also give the right SEO signals out, which help your rankings. Earlier it used to be about captions, alt text, and image size optimization. Now or in the near future, it’s about sticking close to the subject, in-image text, AI image analysis and more. Thanks to smarter AI, huge computing resources available with search engines and much better analytics, it’s about genuinely winning the user with your photos. And there are some things that can never go wrong. Read on…
Learn how to get it right with images, to get your image SEO performing the way you want.
Make them stick
Images hold the key to a user being either glued to the rest of the content or to just close the page in haste. Sure there are ways to clickbait a user with an interesting, suspenseful and jaw-dropping image that gives a strong message, but the story has to go in sync with the image or else the users will leave as fast as they came. So why is this “on-site” time important? Because it is this average time on site and pages per visit, that tells search engines how interesting or uninteresting your site is, for the given subject. So along with interesting text, you need interesting photos that walk hand in hand.
They can read your photos
Yes, this is not a rumour! Inside news is that search engines not only read the text inside images (text that is part of the graphic) but also count that towards relevance. So, if you have a background of pasta image with text “red pasta sauce recipe” it is surely going to count up. Also, search engines can today read if there is food, people, landscapes or animals in the image. They can even read deeper, like expressions, actions and weather for example! Yes, almost everything that the image is trying to say. Search engine companies are using this data although at a primary stage.
Dynamic image sizing
You need to have different sizes for the same image in different orientations for different machines. Users on cell phones need a different orientation and resolution than say a desktop user. WordPress or your CMS plugins can accomplish this with ease. Some themes, which are responsive, have this feature built in. Responsive themes and web pages adjust to user device resolution and orientation.
Is this uninteresting and commonly used image going to help me impact my reader? I don’t think so!
Photo 97334459 © ProjeBox – Dreamstime.com
Overused images
Stay away from regular, “you can find me everywhere” kind of images that flood the Internet. Find a unique image that has not been overly used and sticks uniquely close to the message. It will keep the user interested and tell the search engine that this page is different, interesting and fresh. This is really important for your content. To stand out, you absolutely have to respect this rule.
As few or as many
Use few images if the subject demands or the story is quick. Use more images if the subject demands and the reading long. It helps keep the user interested and breaks the text monotony and makes it easy to follow steps at the same time. For example, a DIY project page needs images for each step. It also helps you rank well if user finds the experience in sync with what they are here to accomplish. By spending more time and recommending the page, they help you get more and more traffic that builds over time.
Image sitemaps
Having one is of utmost importance. If you have WordPress with a good SEO plugin, it will generate one automatically. You can then head to google/yahoo/bing and submit your sitemap so that the search engines can crawl your images with ease and know that your website contains some useful images and gives them good SEO signals to help rank your site.
Use structured data for your images
Using structured data can enhance your page’s appearance in search results with snippets. Remember seeing those thumbnails in a google search engine on the search engine results page? These snippets attract the majority of users and you need to absolutely have this feature. For example, you can use the news schema property for newsworthy images and when using a news article. You can learn more at https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/sd-policies#images.
Old-school optimizations
Not to say that old-school optimizations are dead. They still count heavily on how the photo will be treated by search engines and users alike. Images need to have relevant and non-spammy titles, alt text (no copy-paste from titles please) and captions. Optimize jpeg for web to around 80%. Use good software like Photoshop (save for web option in file menu) for this purpose to get good results. Faster load times will lead to not only a better user experience but also a higher page speed ranking. Page speed percentages are key to winning that green check by search engines and it is a very important SEO parameter with high impact. This is a low-hanging fruit that you should not ignore.
Here are some other old-school tips that work well
- Name your images in line with the subject at hand, short simple and accurate is the key.
- Name images in series as the next step of any “step-by-step” scenario like recipes, tutorials, etc.
- Keep the names/caption/alt text in line with what your target keywords are, do not spam, and use light keyword density
- Keep captions in line with the mood of the image and the rest of the article.
- A caption is very important, most users read this more than other text in the article, and it has to be spot on.
- Use social media tags, Twitter cards, open graph, etc. This makes sure your images appear when the user shares your page.
- Use short alt text, and avoid words like ‘image of..’, in your ALT text. Keep it short and simple.
- Using CDN for image-intensive sites.
Some of the advanced image techniques that search AI and bots are using are not yet implemented (fully or partially) but do you want to be the one who loses out when the next big update hits the web? Sure no! So, it’s best to consider these emerging technologies besides well-established photo optimizations. It does not hurt your chances, in fact, increases user engagement and helps get more direct traffic.
Guest blog written by Ashmita. Ashmita is a remote photo editor with Dreamstime and also likes to write on a wide variety of subjects. You can find her wandering the Himalayas when not at work.
Blog, SEO