Posted by SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, meaning a process of boosting website positioning in all the search engines used by people. Engines like these in order to display the websites in the best way possible need to understand the way in which sites are built, starting with the code, the content itself, and taking into account even the bounce rates and overall user enjoyment. Optimizing your website leads to a significant improvement in its organic traffic resulting in much better performance, being much more cost-effective than conventional ads.
What is image SEO?
Image SEO is basically an umbrella term for many activities done in order to:
- Make pictures the most understandable for search engines
- Make them as interesting for an average visitor as possible, contributing to the website’s better visibility in results pages,
- Make them as easy and fast to load as possible to improve the page speed.
Understanding image SEO is one of, if not the most, vital aspect of the whole SEO itself, and without paying enough attention to it you may have a massive problem with getting organic traffic.
How do images help SEO?
Images help SEO in many different ways:
Firstly, using image SEO increases the number of visitors by showing the website not only on the main search page but also in the image section.
Secondly, people tend to base their judgment and enjoyment on the website’s visual aspects. There is no better way of making it look more appealing than using various images.
Moreover, high-quality images lure visitors’ attention and make them stay longer on the website, boosting their engagement and providing them with additional content to spend time on.
Everything mentioned above plays a significant role in website management and, if done properly, will not put additional stress on your servers and will not negatively affect the loading speed.
Reduce image sizes
Image size reduction plays an essential role in SEO significantly improving the loading time, which can be quite a problem for more complex websites. This may seem like a small thing, but in reality, it makes a huge difference, lowering the bounce rate and boosting user enjoyment, both crucial for the search engines’ IA to know whether to recommend your website at the top of the results page.
Write relevant alt descriptions
Alt descriptions work as a translation for the AI behind the search engines to help it properly understand the content of the images. By well-written alt text, overall optimization can be improved and the chance of your website showing up at the top of the results will be much higher. It is a great occasion to use as many keywords as possible, and it should not be wasted.
Use your own photos instead of free stock images
Taking photos on your own allows you to tailor them to your needs. Using this method you can make the pictures exactly in a way that resonates the best with the keywords you think would work in an alt description. Moreover, this way you also create your website’s uniqueness, making it stand out from all the other options visitors have and making it more interesting both for search engines and users.
Use descriptive image names
Using descriptive image names is considered another great way of providing additional information and much-needed context for search engines to make them boost your website’s visibility. Moreover, image names are also visible to all the users so making them as descriptive as possible makes it also more straightforward and more pleasant for them to understand the content you create, additionally boosting user enjoyment. Another thing, that is not often talked about, is that people with partial or full blindness often use tools such as TTS (text-to-speech), and proper image description is the best way to help them understand the content of the picture, making a whole website much more inclusive and welcoming.
Conclusion
To sum everything up, image SEO is one of the best ways to increase traffic. By optimizing your website for search engines you improve its visibility, make it stand out from the competition, and save money on advertising. SEO is not time-consuming but essential to building a well-functioning internet page. It also helps you use the full potential of such powerful tools as search engines, that nowadays control what we, as internet users, see, do, and believe in.
Nowadays having a popular website without proper optimization is nearly impossible, meaning that the future belongs to those who understand how the internet works, which is why it is best to engage the service of a professional Web design agency or SEO company to handle your web optimization needs while you focus on making your business run smoothly. I recommend the guys at WDN, a web design company in Lagos, Nigeria with super SEO services, they can be supported in terms of content analysis and strategy, link building and more.