Getting your basic on-page SEO factors right should be a quite easy thing to achieve. Targeting your pages effectively is certainly not rocket science, but there are definitely things that a lot of people forget on a regular basis. For this post I’m going to assume that most of you are already aware that simply stuffing your keyword into the title and all over your content is not enough; in fact it could actually be detrimental to your rankings if you over use your keywords. I believe, as do many others, that’s it’s got a lot more to do with consistency. From experience I’ve found that you get the best results by getting every little detail right. So what can you do to go the extra mile?
Stretching beyond the basics of meta titles content there are a few things that people forget to think about. This post focuses on the use of images, how they fit within SEO, how to use them correctly, and why they are important for SEO.
Why do Search Engines Like Images?
Personally I think that search engines take particular note of images is because they add so much to the user experience. Not only do images make a website look better, they also help put across ideas and illustrate exactly what a certain piece of content is about. The internet without images would certainly be a very, very different place!
Images
A lot of people who are new to SEO don’t realise the potential that your images have to make a positive impact on your rankings. If you have images on the page (most pages do) then you should really be thinking about how you can use them to benefit your SEO. First of all, when uploading your images make sure that you resize them before you upload them. If you want to display an image at 300px wide, then edit the image to the correct size first. This will really help reduce load times and save you any unnecessary lagging; all positive news for user experience.
Whilst you’re editing your images offline, ensure that you save them so that the file name includes an appropriate keyword. For example, if you are building a landing page about brown leather shoes it makes sense to include an image of brown leather shoes. It also makes perfect sense for this image to be named ‘brown-leather-shoes.jpg’ rather than DSpic01.jpg. Having the keyword in the file name will really help with on-page targeting and also Google image search.
Once you have uploaded your images, it’s now time to place them on the page. This is when the all important ‘alt’ tag can be implemented. In past experiences I’ve noticed more of an impact from optimised alt tags than I have from keywords in bold text. I really would recommend that the alt tag is something that shouldn’t be ignored. Most CMS’ will give you the option of including an alt tag when you are placing the image on the page. Some CMS’ will refer to it as ‘alternative text’ or ‘alt attribute’. Make sure you use a keyword!
Key Points:
-Keep your image file size to a minimum
-Use a keyword in the file name
-Use a keyword in the alt tag
-Use images to illustrate your points
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