making your images do more {simple seo tips}
Images.
For many bloggers, images are the hardest part of each post. As the internet becomes more image-driven, the pressure to have excellent and share-able images along with fabulous content can become the most arduous aspect of crafting a post.
We put so much time and effort into making our images count for each post but are they helping your SEO? With just a few simple steps, you can make your images do even more.
Make filenames readable — by humans and machines.
Give your image a simple two or three word name. Don’t leave it as “DSC 0001-4.” Instead change it to image-seo-tips. Use dashes or hyphens in the image not underscores or plus signs.
Use alternative text.
Alternative text becomes part of the html of your image. It provides information to display if the image is unavailable. This tag is also used by Google to determine what your image is about. Use keywords in this description. When you insert your images into the Media Library in WordPress, the alternative text box is under the caption box.
The alternative text is also what will automatically pull when you Pin the image. If you fail to include it and don’t type in specific text, the Pin will show the file name {which is another reason to use good file names}.
Resize your image before inserting into your post.
Page load time is a factor in SEO. Take the time to resize your photo before you add it to your post. You can resize directly in WordPress by selecting “edit image” then “scale image.” Typically, I resize in Picmonkey before I upload the image to WordPress, and Erin does hers in Photoshop or Illustrator, but either way will work.
These three simple steps will make your images more SEO friendly and are definitely worth the extra few minutes it will take to do them.
How much time do you spend preparing images for your blog posts?
Want simple tips and great information like this in your inbox every week? Subscribe now and make sure you don’t miss a single post.
As someone who works in SEO and web design I completely agree with your post. Its so simple to name the images, but it improves a site’s/blog’s SEO. Definitely do this! Thanks for the post.
Thank you for your kind words. It does take a little more time but it is definitely time well spent.
Images are very necessary to add in a post to make it interesting and more informative. The bloggers are always recommended to resize and insert users and search engines’ friendly titles before inserting. Alt attribute is very necessary for images and it should not be missed in any way. Your tips for making images more search engines and users’ friendly are pretty helpful for bloggers to optimize their posts as well as images.
Thank you for sharing more insight into this topic, Stephanie!