4 Tips for SEO Image Optimization
SEO Image Optimization is quite the balancing act of anchors, content, keywords, and images. Each has its place in driving SEO ranking. Images are the often the overlooked or forgotten facet of SEO. When search engines crawl websites it easily indexes the content but is unable to do so for the images. The search engine can tell basics regarding the image such as face recognition and how much skin tone is in the picture but is unable to tell exactly what a picture is. Even if your picture is just a text image, search engines can’t determine what it is. So, you’ll need to tell the search engine about the picture. I have compiled a few search engine optimization tips regarding images.
Image File Names
The first on my list for SEO solutions is properly naming the image. By naming the image appropriately you can give the search engine a basic description of the image. Take the image to the at the top for example. When taken, the camera automatically named it WIN_20180206_20_38_20_Pro.jpg. This name doesn’t improve SEO so I renamed it SEO_Image_Optimization_storm_glass_plant_candles.jpg. This would tell the search engine that it should include it in results for any combination of storm, glass, plant, and candles. You’ll notice that I also utilized the name of the image to incorporate article keywords to strengthen the content.
Image File type
This leads to my next SEO tool to increase your SEO, image file types. As you are changing the image name to something that is indexable make sure you have it in a file type that search engines will crawl. You can find a complete list of file types that Google indexes to ensure your file will fulfill your SEO image optimization goals.
Alt Text
Alt text was originally intended to be displayed in place of images for those that were visually impaired or had turned off image downloading for a faster browser experience. Currently, assistance for the visually impaired relies heavily on the use of alt text and you can read more about it uses on W3C’s website.
Alt text/alt tag relates to SEO image optimization as another way for search engines to “read” what an image is to optimize web image search results. Think of alt text as a meta description to help the search engines index your image.
Image Site Maps
Image sitemaps are the last step in SEO image optimization. Any reputable company that offers SEO services will recommend a sitemap for your website containing all of the pages and when they were last updated to aid in your SEO ranking. You should also list your images on your sitemap to maximize your image search optimization.
Conclusion
With these four tips regarding image SEO explained, you will be ready to give your site that extra push to build your SEO ranking with the search engines development of image searches. By utilizing SEO image optimization with content development, keyword selection, and other SEO tools your site will be able to reach its full potential.