Google images provide a visual representation of businesses, locations, food, and other items. Internet users can leverage Google images to aid their search for food recipes, beauty products, infographics, DIY instructions, and many others. The pictures provided when users search the internet give them a peek at what they are searching for and can help to improve or refine their search.
Each Google image presented in search results has two attributes, the page headline, and the image attribution. Searchers can enlarge the desired image by clicking on it and can find more information, including the image license, the source page content, and a link to visit the image source website.
The link section of the image search offers a real SEO potential to businesses and brands who wish to be seen and heard. However, before you jump on the image search train and begin to optimize your website to get traffic from image search, you need to answer a couple of questions.
- Is your content something that people would visually search for?
- How will an average internet user go about searching for such pictures?
- Is it possible to determine a preview of your website that image seekers will find compelling to visit?
- Do your web pages have images that are relevant to the content on them?
These questions can form the basis of whether or not you should optimize your website for image search SEO. If your website passes all of the tests based on the questions above, optimizing the images on it can give you a real chance of driving traffic back to your web pages.
However, if you decide to hone image search SEO despite negative answers to the questions, you may be wasting your time. For example, stuffing clip arts and images on an essay on the political stability of a country may produce no image search SEO contributions to your website because it is highly unlikely that people would search for images just to read a political think piece.
On the other hand, illustrative artists may enjoy better results from image search SEO due to the uniqueness of their creation and the chances that it’ll match genuine search queries. The best approach to image search SEO is to know your audience and what they are interested in.
If you have determined that your business or brand can benefit from Google image search SEO, you should know what Google suggests and take action.
Some of the following suggestions include:
Providing context for the images:
To provide context, ensure that the content on your page matches the image used. Choosing images that have no relationship with the content on your page may hurt your chances of visibility and added value. You should also optimize your headings and page title to bolster the context of the images used. It is best to have the user in mind at all times and optimize your page and images to meet their search needs and intent.
Image placement optimization:
Optimizing your images involves applying the image in the most appropriate area/section of your page. If the image ties into the context of your content, place it closest to the area where it is most relevant. You should also make sure that image captions are placed closer to the image. For placement best practice, ensure that the most prominent image is placed closer to the top of the page.
Avoid overlapping texts:
Texts that overlap your images may hurt its chances of getting seen where it matters the most on search results. It is best to separate your images from surrounding texts.
Alt-attributes are important:
Alt-attributes are so important they can be discussed as a stand-alone topic. They provide information about the image to the blind. Paying attention to alt-attributes not only optimizes your image and website for accessibility but also improves SEO results.
High-quality images are always better:
If you are choosing between a high-quality image and a low-quality image, remember that the higher the quality, the better the chances. Google is optimizing for user experience and this means that increased clarity offers better preview images and better chances of click-throughs.
Image context matters:
Make sure that your website has high-quality and dense information to offer readers. The text content on the page where the image appears, can boost your chances of better image search results.
Added to these suggestions, other factors like page speed, website responsiveness across platforms, and website security can also contribute to image ranking. A fast, light, and well-optimized website with good, stable, and descriptive URLs stands a better chance of getting better results. You can also license your images to improve the chances of ranking better.
For website speed, always consider that internet users have a short attention span. With this in mind, use lazy-loading techniques wherever possible. You should also use responsive images with optimized file sizes.
