Let me make it easy to understand what is image SEO as you are probably putting a lot of effort into your website, creating SEO content to get leads
SEO Image Tags: A complete guide for image optimization
Today, the internet is full of visual graphics and animations, attracting tons of people. But not most of you are getting this much traffic on your site.
Probably, because you are only doing half optimization for SEO.
Uploading a fully optimized SEO article wouldn’t be getting more than 70% of the internet traffic because the rest depends upon SEO images.
Putting aside the need for SEO articles as there are alternative methods to get SEO content; you can hire SEO experts for that. But for SEO image, you should do that by yourself as you know what you are trying to achieve through it.
Still, the image SEO can only be findable on SERPs, if the backend optimization is up to the mark.
But the questions may arise in your mind.
I will clear all of your doubts and queries; however, you need to know the latest update Google has just introduced. The image on your blog which was just a mere formality and its sole purpose was to attract and illustrate the content is now transformed into IMAGE SEO. This means it will now appear in the Google search image. So better focus on it!
Look! let me make it easy for you to understand what is image SEO?
You are putting a lot of effort into your blog, creating SEO content and getting traffic and generating organic leads, but another blog (the same niche as yours) is driving a crazy amount of traffic, and you are here thinking Gosh!
Does he have magic or some kind of magic wand?
But you do not know that the other blog also optimizes images for Google search and receives 30 percent more audience from there.
As by the year 2018, Google introduced The ‘View Image’ push button is now
restored as ‘Visit the page’ which shoots up the web engagement up
to 30% more than before.
Image SEO is the optimization of images and graphics for Google visibility and getting credits and ranking in return. Search engine crawlers find image SEO with relative meta tags very appealing that it persuades them to click on it. So, most of them go for a relative image search and upon finding the right image, they click on the visited page and read the content.
For instance, you are searching for “Different breeds of cats” in Google search, thousands of articles will show up with one or two cat pictures, and then you will shift your search to Google search image. Upon scrolling down, your eyes catch the sight of the one, the one your heart yearns for. Immediately, you would want to know the breed name and all the necessary details about it, and then you would tap the visit button to arrive at the right page!
This button will lead you to the blog and that is how your image SEO works |
That is what Image SEO is all about, getting found by your audience in the Google search image.
To master the SEO optimization, you need to know how to optimize the image for website performance, Shopify store, and WordPress.
Image optimization is the way of reducing the file size of your on-page image SEO that would increase the speed of page load keeping the picture quality at its best. It’s literally the best way to rank on Google search images and other image search engines.
SEO is all- talk about being found on search engines like social media celebrities!
Now you want your product or services to be Google image SEO or want them to convert into image SEO friendly.
Then follow my steps to see your efforts getting the entire spotlight!
The first basic blunder that you might have made or you can say that you did not know that it was this important and nearly ignored it is, naming of your image.
You need to name your image properly and if there is a brief description attached, it would add five stars to it.
How do I name my pictures for Image SEO?
Well, I can bet you have overlooked the image filename SEO strategy before uploading, haven’t you?
Most of your uploaded images are named as either IMG-23451.jpg or IMG78067.png. As filename serves the purpose of SEO and Keyword integration for Google visual interface; therefore if you name the SEO image filename which includes keywords, for example, I want to SEO image optimize the pictures in this article, then my filenames shall be image-seo.jpg.
In this way, it would take its place in the search results. You must avoid placing articles and conjunctions in the filenames as it inhibits the process of SEO ranking!
This proves to be Google Image’s best SEO practices among the rest!
Understanding the Alt text, these are the hyperlinked texts or you can say tags similar to Facebook tagging which automatically leads the way to the destined place. You may have noticed a small text written over a box when the page fails to load that is in actual Alternative texts. These texts define the used photos and allow a better user experience.
The on-page SEO image should have a relative image SEO Alt text (it means the Alt text that is going to be presented should have the strongest keyword). Moreover, the Alt text and image’s title attribute, that is the HTML tag have to be written concisely so that it can add relevancy to it.
Let’s say you run a blog about tech and electronics and sell those products, but now you want the photos of your goods to be everywhere like in search engines as well as in image search engines. Then, add image SEO Alt text like electronic media while the title that is Image SEO Alt Text HTML, you should write something like <best-electronic-media>, <best-electronic-products>, or <electronic-goods>.
Do you know why I am advising on these HTML tags and titles?
Because now the image SEO tags are shown as HTML title tags in SERPs so you have to add something relevant to the image, Alt text, and the host page.
If you have to optimize a lot of alt texts and if you are using WordPress, I’d recommend you to use a plugin named Image SEO Optimizer.
This plugin uses an AI of facial recognition to automatically fill out your missing alternative texts. This is so helpful if you have hundreds or thousands of images not optimized for SEO.
Image SEO Optimizer also rewrites image filenames with SEO friendly content. This plugin is an excellent way to save a ton of time and easily obtain positive SEO results.
You have used your SEO toolbox, right?
That toolbox is actually a Content management system (CMS). When you click on the image body, a box will appear out of nowhere and that box is said to be an image optimization box or rich text module. This box contains an ALT text area, where you can edit, change, and customize the ALT text of your image.
After this step, the web hosting developers automatically run the ALT text as the web page’s HTML source code. And even now you can still edit your old text in the source code page. Some hosting sites do not have a perfect CMS system with which you can optimize photos for SEO purposes easily.
Desire image SEO alt text which can rank on Google and other search engines?
Then be more specific and use your keywords in the image alt text. You do not have to write in a whole long paragraph rather than use specific keywords that are more relevant to the image, that describes the image and is about its content.
Google search engine can either rank you higher up into the 7th Sky or push into the depth of the earth, and all because of your single time Any mistake or negligence. So it’s better to be mindful of how are you going to describe your image so that the relative audience may be shown the right results and target your blog.
Suppose your website is dealing with some stationery products and while describing or adding your image as you all text you messed it up another product on the Google search matches with your which is irrelevant to you and your product for instance your product electronic pencil is showing on the page of electronic devices. Then how will you be able to get the people? It is a disastrous move, you can ever make!
Be specific, be conscious!
Let’s move on to the next step
Choosing the right format for your image to make your web page load easily and to make it more SEO friendly for your audience may be a little tricky.
But it takes a fraction of a second till you completely understand its science.
First of all,
But I still prefer PNG over JPEG, because most of my web’s images are sketched lines. PNG is good at crafting and producing the quality of illustrations, graphs, and charts, but if there is going to be a real-life picture, then JPEG is good to go! Thus, it means you must know your resource and files and act accordingly!
One more thing and in my opinion it is the most important thing Is the size of the Image. the good image SEO strategy is to upload a picture below 100 KB.
I suggest that you should have a stock folder of pictures where you can store photos under 100 KB For quick use. You might have seen This sometimes that when you load a page The images and that content gradually loads. First, a blurry version comes up then some scattered pixels and gradually it sharpens till you can view it properly. Try to avoid these progressive JPGs!
One more thing! It is also reported that the EXIF data may be affecting your ranking and that is the main reason behind your SEO image performance on Google. You can turn off EXIF data stripping from the option ImageOptim.
Adding more to this, Google LightHouse and PageSpeed Insight have audit tools that have a more compressed format (JPEG2000 and JPEG XR) but most of them are not recommended for every browser. Still, you can host your people with WebP conversion whenever there’s a viewer.
You should bear this in your mind that even the largest desktop can only handle 2560 pixels at width. Make sure that the pictures are not that much wider than most of the desktop’s resolution and look for the ideal dimensions. The browsers cut down the pixels dimensions and size on its own if you are not providing the ideal situation for that. This step may lead to satisfactory web performance but it can drastically harm the image SEO as the CSS is automated image responsive.
Now you are thinking of the consequences.
It can be possible that the user may be viewing your website through the mobile tablet laptop or in a rotate position that is called landscape then what will happen to the image?
Will it serve the purpose of SEO image user friendly?
The visual needs of the website are often based on multiple copies of the same shots Will dynamically serve the purpose of user’s screen image SEO. You can also use coding for image optimization and make it user screen-friendly whenever you want. You just have to get the specific plugins (WordPress plugins are really specific and time saver) or you can add picture> and/or <srcset> elements.
If you are optimizing an image for the Shopify store, then Shopify SEO Image Optimizer is highly compatible as it knows its practices and users more than you.
Shopify users want their product page to load in the blink of an eye. So, you better optimize the speed of page load with the help of Shopify SEO Image Optimizer.
Shopify SEO image Optimizer assists you in:
You can also get help from a few tools that are tinyPNG, SMUSH, GIMP, and minifyweb. They are compatible.
As a hard-working website owner it is heartbreaking 2 watch your owned images on others feed so to avoid this copywriting there are several ways that
Note that your picture or image can get Copyright so do not get upset and you can also use Google’s IPTC metadata information for Copyright.
Before we can actually move on to the audit and page loading system we need to know how CSS works on different user’s screens.
The cache system works effectively on multiple conditions and you can make the most of it. Suppose you have regular viewers, then you can set a cache and cookie system on your page. It will take less time in loading the next time, they visit, because the cache data downloaded in their device would no longer reload that, and would directly jump to the destined page.
The audit tools actually measure the URLs processes such as off-screen deferring and unused CSS using a command-line interface.
Great! Now you have learned about all the basics of image SEO.
But how to know that the SEO image is fully optimized and ready to make a difference?
I know you must have been thinking that all I ever thought about all text but there’s more to it. Images SEO and its optimization are a critical and somewhat complicated for beginners, so let’s wrap it up for you in a box.
You can also do image reverse search and recognitions with new Google’s image reverse search features. The latest artificial intelligence and machine learning services provided by Google lens and vision AI tests the image’s overall performance and it actually tries to understand what’s within the object and the text so that it serves the SEO purpose.
WordPress SEO image and Yoast SEO optimization are really convenient in this sense. WordPress and its Yoast SEO plugin offer an auto-updated sitemap. All of your image’s URLs and exact locations are automatically generated and stored in there once you publish your webpage.
Unlike, regular media pages posed for no index settings have a changeable caption as well, but Yoast does not support such amendments. It only serves in <image:image> and <image:loc> tags. You can do manual work here to edit the caption in the sitemaps.
Reminisce about being a sophomore at college and asking your seniors for tips before assessment! Even though you knew the syllabus, the test patterns, and have studied, but still, there are some handy tips that your senior used to give you that actually helped (increased marks)!
Similarly, I am going to give you 6 best SEO image optimization tips to help you rank better in the SERPs.
Visual content grabs a lot of attention from the viewers, but it is the exact opposite when it comes to the host or site owner.
You just pick up the suitable pictures from stocks like Google images, Pinterest, etc., back it up in your stock images, and later upload it with the content. That is not how you optimize the stock image for SEO.
That is how you just wasted your content and lose the SEO catalog!
You must follow the procedure, even if you are downloading it from Google stock images. Another tip that is actually really good is that create your image SEO using stencils, Canva, and some other Photoshop and editing apps.
This chart shows the characters of the images in a different format and as it is quite cleared that PNG offers more like raster images that shade the entire image into pixels, transparency with which you can post it on any background without worry, and animation, the graphics are A-one in PNGs.
In terms of motion pictures or visual animations with HD quality, then SVG is recommended. WordPress image SEO works better with SVG and PNG images and graphics and the same goes for Shopify products.
Shopify who deals with international clients and work with diversified products and services needs faster loading time and HD quality for proving it to be ‘Shopify SEO Image’. Thus, I would say, ‘Go for PNG!’
I told you to keep your page light and engaging, that is the key to gain that other 30% of people!
The HTTP Archive does not support large files and that would put you in the last.
No! Don’t think that the wordy content must be making up all the weight!
21% of your webpage is composed of visual contents whether WordPress or Shopify SEO images.
Use compression tools for obtaining the right resolution and uplift your content. TinyPNG behaves better for WordPress sites as it has installed WordPress Plugins.
WP Smush also does the trick and fits most of the sites. You can handle it easily. It is also one of the WordPress plugins, but it is great at reducing the large files into consumable ones without compromising on the quality.
You must know that compression produces valuable things like a diamond and your image!
Imagine creating a unique graphic and animation or you could be running a photography site, and you see someone using it as his/ her own!
That’s the worst scenario ever!
The case can be the exact opposite as well. What if you are the one who used someone else’s art?
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) sues anyone on the internet who uses someone else’s work as their own. The owners of the copyright pictures can post an issue through this and that could cause any of us a loss of million dollars.
Pinterest, GettyImages, Shutterstock, and DepositFiles.com are licensed sites, therefore posting any of their pictures on your webpage, gets a license from them.
You would not want to lose some bucks!
Alt texts are getting all the attention when your webpage is loading at the speed of turtle!
They are alternative tags or description of your image when nothing is showing in its place. Write as relevant text as you can.
How do they work?
Use Alt Text like
<img src=”different-breeds-of-cats.png” alt=” different breeds of cats”/>
This will be viewable and it is the perfect title for an image to define the multiple shots of cats in a single frame.
The overall on-page SEO strategy includes this for a reason, because in case your server went down or your page loads slowly in that particular region, then at least the interested reader would know that what this blank box is about.
Google Analytics in recent years has shown these Alt texts are promoting SEO image services and achieving better ranks. As well in some of the news articles related to tech, the WordPress content strategist also declared that these alt tags and HTML titles are worth the efforts to boost the viewers.
Understand the image search algorithm.
The image’s rank deals with its whereabouts which are the webpage’s title and description as per the Google experts.
There are several other more particulars that you should incorporate into your observation such as meta tags, title, subheadings, header and footer’s taglines, etc. You should add strong keywords so that Google shows the search accordingly.
Make it easy for Google to understand what you want and where you want to stand in the SERPs!
These SEO image optimization tips are like those flat 70% off sales on your favorite product!
Most of the WordPress users quote that
“WordPress gives user-friendliness to organize and audit your webpage. Defined rich text module for CMS services is one of the featured fringe benefits for WordPress Users.”
WordPress SEO image optimizer not only helps you organize the image, but also assists you in setting keywords, and meta descriptions.
That is how you can write SEO friendly titles and descriptions by the incorporation of keywords and alignment of headings!
Writing alt text for an image is the SEO equivalent of flossing your teeth. It’s tedious but necessary.
Most of the time, writing alt text is a simple task. Do you need alt text for a product image? Put the product name. What about a chart or graph? Enter the title. A logo? Use this format: logo.
Unfortunately, writing alt text is not always straightforward. Alt text for stock photos and filler images is notoriously hard to write.
How do you write a keyword-rich description of the generic man-holding-a-phone photo on your contact page? What about the headshot on your about page, or the feature image on your blog article?
If you’re having trouble, help is at hand. Here is a simple, easy-to-follow method for writing SEO-friendly alt text on stock images and filler images.
Alt text helps your images to rank on Google. You can use keywords in alt text to encourage an image to appear in searches relevant to your business.
However, you’ll need to be careful. Google penalizes keyword stuffing in meta-data (including alt text) the same way it penalizes keyword stuffing in a website’s body copy.
The recommended maximum length for alt text is 125 characters. If you avoid keyword stuffing, that’s enough room for 1-2 keywords. So, you should only need a keyword list with 2-3 options.
Would you like to know something awesome? If you followed SEO best practice when you wrote your website, then you can make your 2-3 keyword list without needing to do any keyword research. Here’s how:
And, that’s it. Your keyword list is complete. Easy right?
Unfortunately, you can’t use your keyword list as your image’s alt text. On the Webmaster blog, Google tells us that an image’s alt text should describe the image.
To write an image description that includes your keywords, you’ll need to find a link between your image and your keywords. It’s not as hard as it sounds.
Usually, an image is selected for a page because it fits the topic of that page. A page’s keywords are an indication of a page’s topic. To find a link, all you need to do is:
Here’s an example: You’ve written a blog article about retirement. The cover image is a tired, old fireman covered in soot. Your explanation sentence might be, “I chose this image because the man looks like he is ready to retire.”
Top tip: The key is to focus on why you choose the image for the topic. If you used a photo of a tired old, fireman covered in soot for an article about house fires, then “I chose this image because the man looks like he is ready to retire” wouldn’t make sense. A more appropriate sentence would be, “I chose this image because it looks like he’s just put out a house fire.”
The instructions for this step are simple: write a single sentence that describes your image.
Don’t try to write technically. Just look at the image and write what you see. If you complete Step 3 directly after Step 1 and Step 2, your brain should naturally steer you towards a description that incorporates a keyword (or a variation of your keyword.)
After you write the description, check it for keywords. If it’s got two keywords, that’s great. If your description only has one keyword, don’t try to add a second one. In 125 characters, one keyword is more than enough. If you add a second one, you might make the sentence sound unnatural.
If your description doesn’t have any keywords, don’t panic. You’ll get better with practice. For now, see if you can think of a sentence that naturally includes a keyword. It might help to re-read your “I chose” sentence from Step 2. It could also be helpful to read some example image descriptions, like the ones below.
Example 1: An article about retirement includes an image of a tired, old fireman covered in soot. The article’s keywords are ‘retirement’ and ‘early retirement.’ A suitable alt text is “A retirement-aged fireman covered in soot with a worn-out facial expression.”
Example 2: Imagine that the image from Example 1 appears on a different website. This time it is on a page about house fires. The article’s keywords are ‘house fire’ and ‘fire insurance.’ A suitable alt text is “an exhausted fireman after putting out a house fire.”
If you’ve tried reading examples and reviewing the “I chose” statement you wrote in Step 2, and you still can’t think of a natural image description that includes a keyword, don’t beat yourself up. There are cases where a description that naturally includes a keyword is not possible.
In such cases, your best option is to use a description with no keywords. A description with no keywords is better for SEO than a description that reads unnaturally. Unnatural descriptions attract penalties.
Step 4 is the most time-consuming. Luckily, it’s only necessary for beginners. If you practice hard, you’ll be able to write alt text that follows SEO best practice with no tweaks needed.
Until then, make sure your tag is 100% search engine optimized by asking yourself the following questions:
Bad alt text: This man should have been wearing one of our lifejackets.
Better alt text: A man without a lifejacket falls from a paddleboard.
Bad alt text: Car, Mechanic, Fixing, Broken down, roadside assistance.
Better alt text: A mechanic providing roadside assistance to a broken-down car.
Bad alt text: A roadside mechanic fixing the mechanics of a broken-down car that needs car repair on the roadside.
Better alt text: A mechanic providing roadside assistance to a broken-down car.
Bad alt text: Jane Smith- an Atlanta based florist – arranging flowers at her local store in advance of a wedding being held between two clients the next day in the city center.
Better alt text: Florist Jane Smith arranging wedding flowers at her Atlanta store.
Bad alt text: A man wearing a shoe.
Better alt text: Joey Ramone wearing Chuck Taylor hi-top sneakers.
Bad alt text: Sarah from our IT department wears a headset and talks to a customer about their Microsoft query.
Better alt text: An IT support consultant wearing a headset helps a customer over the phone.
Why is ‘bad alt text’ in this example bad? This alt text would be excellent for a genuine photo of Sarah from IT support. However, it is not okay to use this alt text on a stock photo. The writer has made up the stock-photo model’s name, employer, and topic of conversation.
Why is the ‘better alt text’ in this example better? The new description states that the stock photo model is an IT support consultant speaking to a customer. That is different than fabricating her name, employer, and the topic of conversation. A person looking at the photo in the context of an IT consultancy website would reasonably interpret it as an IT support consultant speaking to a customer. But, they would not reasonably assume that she is called Sarah, or that she is talking about Microsoft.
Voila! There you have it
You’re ready to write SEO optimized alt text for your website’s images. The first time you use this method will be slow, but don’t be discouraged.
If you follow the steps precisely, you’ll be up to speed in no time.
It’s as simple as 1-2-3-4: Create a keyword list, link your keywords to your image, write a description, and then check your description meets SEO best practice.
In this article, I have tried to tell you every basics of general image SEO and some CMS platforms. For further SEO guidelines keep visiting our website and with our secret and easy baby steps guideline, become an SEO pro.
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