How To Do Image Optimization For SEO

The key steps of a Search Engine Optimization campaign are image optimization and on-page optimization. With the growing use of Search Engines, it is becoming quite difficult to achieve a decent  ranking in the search results. A quality content is no longer the only factor to get a higher ranking.

Though it still holds its own relevance but there are many other factors that contribute to get a position at the top. On-page optimization is one such factor that plays a very important role. You can also create an exclusive image and take screenshots.

You SEO depends a lot on your On-page optimization. Image optimization is the key factor of on-page optimization. Image optimization is the first step in on-page optimization. Images enhance the visual appearance of a webpage. An image can convey the message very effectively.

Your message can be conveyed very effectively if the images are used properly. An improper display can make your website look clumsy and destroy the impact. Also, traffic can be generated from images from Image Search of Google and other search engines.
The factors that play an important role in Image Optimization are title tag, image name, image size, image linking and alt tag.

Image Relevance

The image has to be very relevant. The relevancy plays a very important role in image optimization. A train’s image on the website of Ferrari is not relevant. You must ensure to check the relevancy while creating your website.

Alt Tag

Another important factor in image optimization is Alt tag. Alt represents Alternate. In case the image takes a lot of time to load or cannot be displayed, text in alt tag is shown instead of this image.

Many search engines are not able to read videos and images. These are text-based. These search engines view your images in the form of empty space. This does not serve the purpose and is a barrier in getting a higher rank. Alt tag informs search engines about the position of the images and also tells about the image topic.

For an effective Alt tag, make it descriptive but short. Put the information in alt tags which is relevant to the search engines. For example, alt tag for an image of wedding function can be: alt=”my friend ronin wedding”.

File Name

Keywords play a very important role in a url. Same applies on the images. A Search Engine can determine relevancy with the help of an effective keyword file. Do not give default names to the image file like “DSC0019.jpg”.

This won’t give any details about your image. The filenames should be descriptive. A hyphen “-” should be used between the keywords. The file name of the image is converted to alt tag. So it is very useful in case images plugin are used for WordPress.

Image Size & Image Hosting

Image size plays a very important role in giving an easy user experience. Your page may get heavy with images. Your page should be loaded within 5-10 seconds. If it takes more than that, the users will exit your page. With the Panda update, it has become very important to have the pages loaded in lesser time.

Also Read

Best Free Image Optimization Tools For Websites and Email

The total duration of the visit is considered to be a very important SEO algorithm. The images should be kept low in terms of bytes. You can use Yahoo Smushit to take out the extra bytes from the images.

    

Another factor to be considered is Image hosting. It is important when the traffic is generated from the image search of Google. Images which are hosted on a single domain in the form of text have higher value than those hosted on another domain. Another important factor is to see the the combination of the image with the page text.

Title Tag & Image Linking

Images are visually very appealing. So these are very useful for linking. You must learn the techniques for image linking. This gives better results. For an effective image linking, make sure that the images are not linked directly. When the images are being linked, you must use anchor texts which are relevant.

This is very useful in your Search Engine Optimization campaign when a link is generated from embedding images in various pages and posts. When you link images, the title tag must be used.If you hover over the link, the title tag will display a tool tip. Make title tags effective with SEO relevant description and keywords.

These tips for image optimization are very effective and generate more traffic.