Image SEO: Get More Organic Traffic with these Actionable Tips

The use of graphical content is quickly replacing the use of textual content on the internet. Video and image-based content is easy to view, concise and often more attractive than textual content. Info-graphics are quickly replacing long 1000-word blogs. Most bloggers now use multiple images in their blog to increase the overall appeal of the content by a significant amount. 32% of marketers believe that visual images are now a more important form of content then blogging. 

If you are using graphical content like images, you need to invest a considerable amount of time in increasing the SEO-friendliness of these images to attract the attention of search engines. Here are 6 actionable tips for image SEO that will help you get more organic traffic with ease.

Use Image Tags Wisely

Text and images go hand-in-hand for increasing the SEO-friendliness of the graphical content. You need to add relevant image tags to every image that you upload on the website/blog. These tags will help the search engine’s bot to identify a particular image with ease. Without these tags, the search engine bots would not be able to see the image in its correct format.

It is a good idea to upload the right image tags from the back-end while uploading the images in the first place. However, if you have not used the image tags while uploading the image, you can always go back and do that from the back-end later. Make sure that you change the image tags regularly with the most relevant keywords and meta-titles.

Add the Right Captions and Image Titles

The captions and image titles that you use work just like the image tags. They help the search engine bots identify the image on your website. The only difference here is that the title and captions are natively a part of your textual content on the website. Unlike image tags, they do not increase the direct relevance of the image with the keyword but increase the SEO-friendliness of the overall content of the website.

The caption will also help the search engine bots look for a particular image from an array of images on your website/blog. 52% of B2B marketers prioritize the creation of visual assets an important part of their marketing campaign. 

Upload Images in the Right File Types

The 3 most common file types that people use for images on the internet include JPEG, PNG and GIF. These file types have their unique characteristics. You can easily save and upload an image in either of these 3 formats to attract the attention of the search engine bots.

The JPEG quality is usually the best since it produces high sharpness and offers a good dynamic range. However, this comes at a cost of bigger file size. If the website loading speed is the major concern for you, you might want to go with a GIF image type. The GIF image has the smallest size allowing even slow internet connection speeds to load them quickly.

Resize and Position the Images Correctly

The position of the image plays a major role in its overall visibility. Make sure that your image fits correctly within the other textual content around it. All popular web development platforms like WordPress and Weebly allow you to use different text and picture boxes with a drag and drop functionality. You can easily place an image in-line or as part of a collage using these features. Studies suggest that infographics can increase customer retention by over 12%. 

You should also resize your image to fit into the mobile/desktop screen in an effective way. Both too big as well as too small images can harm the overall visibility of content. Studies show that 65% of the information can be retained by the prospects when text is paired with images, as opposed to only 10% when it is not. 

Use Balanced Image-Quality

You should balance the number of high-quality images on the homepage of the website by showing the audience a small preview of the images in low-quality. Also, an option wherein the audience can select the quality of images will help your audience select the images based on their internet connection speeds. For high-speed connections, the audience can select high-quality images without compromising on the browsing experience. On the other hand, the audience can select low-quality images for a smoother browsing experience on a low-speed connection.

Using the right SEO techniques for the graphical as well as textual content will help your website get more organic traffic. This will, in turn, help you reduce the cost of customer acquisition in the long run. Relevant images and infographics will also help you increase customer retention and make your website content more memorable and impressionable.

Author: Amara Luis

Amara Luis is a skilled and most creative content writer work freelance specializing in writing SEO, social media and other various topic on internet marketing.