HOW TO OPTIMIZE IMAGE-BEST PRACTICES FOR SEO IMAGE OPTIMIZATION

When we talk about search engine optimization, we conveniently move towards the text content of the website and try to optimize it as much as possible. But a content in webpage also constitute images along with text. Google and other search engine requires proper optimization of these images or otherwise the search crawler cannot identify the image used.

Usage of image cannot be reduced, if you divert to think in this directions. The reason is visual medium such as image, GIfs,videos are an attractive and engaging form of communication and the most important part is, Google ranks website higher that carry proper optimized image in the search engine results.

Hence it is better to drop the idea of skipping images and get down to some serious optimization process!

What is the purpose for optimization?

Images are usually optimized for two purposes

1. To help the webpage carrying the image, to rank higher in SERPs.

2. To make the image itself rank in Google image search and in universal search.

Let us focus on methods that can solve both the purpose together.

Ranking for Google Image Search- Adding context in the image:

One of the most important feature for ranking in Google Image Search is the text that surrounds the image. One of the best way to use content for Google image SEO is, to use text that have targeted keywords in the image caption. The image caption should compliment the image and also the keywords should not seem to be stuffed.

For example, if we have boston flower shop our keyword then we can convert it into “Join us in Boston’s best flower shop!”

This creates the natural sounding sentence that make sense with the keywords in the caption.  

Use Descriptive Name for Photo File

While uploading images, webmaster usually use the image name that is convenient to their understanding. But this does not guarantee that the search engine can identify them with search phrases. It also does not guarantee that the searcher can find it relevant in their search result. Seldom we see that people use convenient name like IMG 000205 which does not help to rank the image in search engine results.

SEO for image names should also be done. It means that the image name should carry targeted keywords.It is recommended that the name of the image used without any break or usage of underscore to separate words in an image, makes it difficult for search engine to understand. Instead hyphen should be used to separate words in the images.

Using Descriptive ALT Text

ALT text is the words that appear in the image when the cursor is moved around the image or the text that arrives in search result to describe the image.Alt text helps the search engine to understand the image better and rank it in SERPs. The text of the ALT tag should contain the targeted keywords that are used in the web page where the image will be used.

Increase the tendency for the image to get clicked

A huge amount of traffic is diverted when the image used in the web page are of poor quality. The preferred image format for web is JPEG and larger images tend to attract the attention more. Abstract images should be avoided completely in fact use images that show the object clearly. This will create a better tendency for the image to get clicked in search engine results and earn traffic for the website.

Another important point of consideration in Google images SEO is, the images used should be compressed so that it takes less time to get loaded. Images that are large take lot of time to load and that decreases the loading speed of the website also, which means dual setback.

Folks! The next time you are up for using image in your web page, make sure it is properly optimized.

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