Images Really DO Increase SEO, Here’s How

When crafting an SEO-friendly piece of content, images can often be an overlooked aspect. Sure, they will be used for their aesthetic qualities and to break up text when needed, but images have untapped potential when it comes to bringing in visitors to a website.

File Names

File names can seem innocuous when you upload a picture to your website, but they can play an important part when it comes to SEO for your images. A descriptive file name is much more recognizable to search engines, especially compared to some nonspecific title like ‘IMG0312.jpg’!

When creating a file name for your image, you have to imagine what your customers would type into a search box. There is no point going with a description like ‘Dell computer’, as that is too generic and not specific enough. But at the other end of the scale, you can’t be too descriptive and use an abundant amount of words – a name that is 4-5 words maximum is best.

Overall, just try and include your keyword in the image file name. And also separate the words with hyphens just-like-this.

Image Alt Tag

Alt tags are a necessary addition if you are looking to fully optimize your images. Like the aforementioned file names, they help search engines identify the subject or content of your images. But unlike file names, you have much more freedom to add a more thorough description to go with the picture you have uploaded.

A typical alt tag should contain the keyword associated with the picture, while also making use of a short description. This description further helps the likes of Google to establish what your image is displaying.

Image Size

Google are very stringent to websites that affect user experience by running slow, hence why it is vital to keep site speed to an optimum level. Picture size, in terms of image resolution, can have a big impact when it comes to how fast a page loads.

In a nutshell, you should avoid using high resolution images. You can cut down on the file size of an image drastically without compromising too much on quality, so decreasing the resolution shouldn’t be problematic. The main thing is remembering to optimize every image in this way!

Sitemaps

Ah sitemaps, they are not the most appealing aspect of SEO (that goes without saying), but they are an effective tool to have at your disposal.

The reasoning behind creating and using a sitemap is that once you submit your website, you give Google and other search engines a push in the direction of all the pages your site comprises of. It then ensures that all of your important pages are indexed and available to be found by others when searching.

When it comes to images, the same process applies and they need to be indexed to appear in an image search. If you are not sure your images have been indexed, then just enter your domain name in the image search box and see if the results display your pictures.

Read more: Image SEO: Often Forgotten but Not Insignificant