Image by Diggity Marketing from Pixabay

If you think that SEO is all about text, then you are wrong! Visuals are SEO’s best friend. Just imagine, you visited a webpage, which just had text with a white background, would you feel that the website is trustworthy or would you even remember it later on? Is your answer NO!

A research demonstrates that, “when a relevant image is paired with information, people recalled 65% of the information even after three days. This signifies that images are of importance in SEO, as the Google algorithm considers the user behavior metrics greatly, especially the amount of time the visitors spend on the webpage. However, the images can also be optimized to help directly with SEO, by encrypting the images with relevant tags, so that the search engine crawlers can easily understand what you want them to see and value.

Here are a few ways in which you can optimize the Images for SEO –

• Use High Quality Relevant Images – This is a very important factor to consider as it influences the user experience on your website. Any image which is not relevant to the content on your page might confuse your user. Also, blurry or clumsily cropped images will make your page look amateur. Moreover, you have to be very careful on not to use any copyright images.
• Convert the Filename – Take some time to customize the filename when you add an image to your website. Edit whichever is irrelevant to the page and include the targeted keywords on the page to the image. Though the customers are not going to look into the filename, it provides the search engines with the information on what the page is about and the best key terms to associate the search results with it.
• Image Alt Tags – Though the visitors to the website can’t view these tags, the search engine crawlers can connect it. This text signals the search engines on what the page is about. In case if there is a problem with your browser on loading up, this text will show up on the place of the image. Always keep the alt text for your images updated and include the primary keyword to it.
• Resize your images – You might want the images to look really good, but you don’t want them to slow down the performance of your website, then you might have to consider resizing the images on your website. This is easy to do, and you can make the website function faster while exhibiting images at a high resolution. After you resize, make sure that the image file size is smaller without giving up on the quality.
• Include images to Sitemap – Google urges the website owners to submit a sitemap to help the search engine crawlers to crawl better on the pages and add them to the index. It also allows incorporating images to the sitemap. When you offer clear cut information on the images to Google, it will increase the chances of showing them on the Google Image Search, which will ultimately increase your website’s visibility.

Image SEO is comparatively a much easier method in SEO. Simply by devoting your time to find the right images and optimize them for the search engines, you are actually giving your website an extra advantage in the search engines.