Keywords, content, and SEO tend to be the focus
when you’re trying to direct more traffic to your website. Images are a
powerful tool for traffic as well, but unfortunately, many marketers aren’t
using them to their fullest potential.
Images are content as well, which can be easy to
forget. In fact, images are an essential part of any content marketing effort.
Users are also searching for visual content, so if you’re not using images as
part of your SEO, you’re missing out on valuable opportunities.
How Do Images Boost Traffic?
Images serve many purposes
for your site, such as:
●Aesthetics: Images make your site
more visually appealing and easier to digest, which keeps people on your site
longer and decreases the bounce rate
.
●Image search: Images pull traffic
from image searches, which may direct a different audience to your site than
other searches.
●Social media shares: Images get more
shares and engagement on social media than text-only posts. The more your
content is shared, the larger your potential audience is and the more likely
you are to get readers for your posts.
Optimizing for Image Search
Images need to be optimized just like anything
else. Optimizing images isn’t much different than optimizing other types of
content, and they rank similarly. The first image on the image search results
page is the equivalent of the first website to come up in a standard search.
Image search has more results, however, and
people view images differently. Because of this, it’s important to optimize
your images to be sure they’re close to the top.
Here’s how:
**File Names**
Cameras use a series of letters and numbers as
the default name for images. Unfortunately, this doesn’t do much to boost your SEO.
Whenever possible, rename your images with a
relevant title that reflects the content, which gives a search engine an idea
of what it is.
**Alt Tags**
Image alt tags are metadata that help a search
engine index an image. Editing alt tags not only improves your ranking, but it
also boosts your SEO overall.
An ideal alt tag description is short, but
filled with keywords. It should accurately describe the image for visually
impaired users as well.
**Compression**
Your images should be as big as possible, but
use as little storage space as possible, which can be done with compression.
Tools like Compressor.io
can be used to reduce
the storage size and retain the quality of the image.
Now that we know how to optimize, let’s take a
look at how to use image search to direct traffic to your website.
Use Your Own Images
Stock photography has its purposes, but if
you’re consistently using stock photos, it’s not going to help your site. Stock
photos don’t accurately reflect your brand, and they give your site a
disorganized look, which is then communicated to your visitors.
Original images, on the other hand, show your
visitors that you put the extra effort into the look of your site and the
overall image of your brand. Original images are also traced back to your site,
which means that you’re more likely to earn backlinks when others use them for
their own content. They’ll also show up earlier in the image search results,
giving you an SEO boost.
If you don’t have the resources to create your
own images, it’s acceptable to use stock images. However, you should be doing
all you can to limit your use of stock photography and provide as many original
images as you can.
Related Image Keywords
Just like text content, image content has a
primary keyword that’s included in the file name and alt tag. You should still
be using related image keywords, however, to give your strategy more variety
and to target searchers who want to find your image but may not be using the
proper keyword.
This may seem like extra work, but you’d be
surprised at how different the images can be between similar keywords. When you
cast a wide net with related keywords, you’re reaching a much larger audience.
If you need some assistance in coming up with
related keywords, just look at the image keyword suggestions at the top of an
image search results page. This will give you an idea of what others are
searching, which you can use as part of your own strategy.
Relevant Images
Relevant images are images that are directly
related to the topic. While this may seem clear, it’s not always the case. Many
people use images that are unrelated to their topic to enhance their posts,
which directs unrelated traffic to your site.
For example, you may use a pop culture reference
that relates to one section of a blog post. Because of this, anyone searching
for that pop culture reference will find themselves on your blog post, when
they were actually looking for entertainment. When they discover the actual
purpose of your site, they’re likely to bounce.
Infographics
Infographics
are an
excellent way to boost your SEO and create custom imagery that is easy for your
readers to digest. They drive thousands of visitors to your site and help you
establish yourself as an authority as well.
Not every bit of content needs an infographic,
but they can help with content that is research intensive or contains a lot of
data. By putting it in a quick, clear infographic format, you’re allowing your
readers to quickly skim the information to get the answers they need.
Watermarks
Watermarking is common with artists and
photographers, but not so much for business owners who create their own custom
images. Watermarking can be used to copyright your images, which is always a
good thing, but it has another purpose — traffic.
Watermarking your images tells people where the
image came from using a link, so it gives you credit and tells viewers where to
go to find similar content. This is a good way to get traffic to your site and
social pages, no matter where the image is shared.
Conclusion
Image SEO is powerful, but few marketers are
using it to their advantage. Keywords and meta descriptions are important, but
images can give you that extra edge over the competition.
People always need images for their own posts or
videos, so driving traffic from optimized images is quick and easy. If you put
some effort into optimizing your images and combining them with your other SEO
tactics, you should see an increase in rankings in no time.