How to Use Images to Boost Your SEO
Using captivating images is an important part of ensuring that your audience reads and comprehends your content. In this article we’ll give you 8 important SEO image tips you need to know.
An image or video can help with understanding and make the content even more compelling, beneficial, and valuable to your audience.
Incorporate Images in Your Content
Using images can make all the difference for your audience because it will get their attention. When you use an image in your content the image will often show up when people share the page which helps get more eyes on it.
Use Relevant Images
The images you use need to add to your content or story and not detract from it. Think about your audience when choosing the images, especially if they include people. Did you know images with people get more attention than images without people?
Don’t Steal Images
This has nothing to do with SEO except you don’t want to get your site taken down for stealing images. You can’t perform a Google search for images and then use them as your own. Create the images yourself or buy them from a reputable source and then follow the rules about how you can use the image.
Optimize the File Name
After choosing the image you need to rename it to match the content you’re associating it with. Use the keywords that you’ve chosen for that piece of content in the image title. It’ll help the image be found in searches which will then lead back to your content.
Alt Tags
Alt tags or alt text is where you put the image description and its purpose is to make the image accessible. Therefore, the image description is important. Don’t just put “lady with purple shirt” as the description. Although this does describe the picture, it doesn’t include any SEO benefit. Instead, add in your keywords. Here’s an example. If your audience is virtual assistants and you’re writing about keeping files organized you can change the lady in a purple shirt to “virtual assistant organizing her files”.
Compress Your Images
To be SEO friendly you need to make sure the image is the right size for the web and not print. This means the image can be smaller than you would use for printing and still look amazing. We use Pixlr and Photoshop to resize our SEO images. You can also read more about compressing and image sizes here.
Make Sure Your Image is Responsive
You also need to make sure the images you use are responsive. One of the things I have seen a lot with DIY websites is people adding text to images. This can be a major issue when going from Desktop to Mobile as the font size can be too small to be seen on smaller devices. It also makes your site less accessible for people with visual impairments.
Include Captions with your images to Boost Your SEO
Another way to improve the SEO for an image is to include a caption that will show up to the reader and search engines. Your caption can be the same as the description if you prefer.
These tips are true for video, not just still images. Consider what can you add to your image to make it clearer who the information is for, what it’s about, and who should read it and why.
