IMAGE OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES FOR BLOGS
Image Optimization Techniques For Blogs - Images are used quiet often in blogs by bloggers in different positions of their blogs like post body, besides post title, in sidebars, in footer, in header and etc. Besides giving a better user experience ("A picture is worth a thousand words of text") it can also be used to optimize your blog for better positioning in SERPs - that is the pictures or images that you use in your blog can be optimized for search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK etc) to give your blog home page or individual posts higher position in the search result pages for relevant searches. For this you need to apply some optimization techniques to the HTML codes of your pictures or images. This post will teach you the techniques that are used to optimize images in a blog.
How Search Engines See Images/Pictures In Your Blog?
Search Engines are not humans (we all know!) so neither can they see or detect images (at least not till date - may be they will in the near future). Search engines use programmes called "Spiders" or "Crawlers" to see a site (web page). These spiders or crawlers are sent by search engines to read a site. The spider reads a site by a process called "Crawling" or "Indexing" and stores the information in their database. This information is later used by search engines to produce relevant search results for search terms. The spiders can only read the text within HTML codes but can not recognize or read the images or what they mean.
How To Make The Search Engine Spiders Read Your Image?
As I have already mentioned above that the search engine spiders cannot read or detect images but there is a way in which you can make the spiders read your images or pictures. This is done by adding "ALT tags" and "TITLE Tags" to the image codes. As alt tags and title tags use texts so the search engine spiders read these texts and know about your images.
Why To Optimize Images?
As I have said earlier and you must have also noticed that images are used in blogs extensively but search engines can not recognise these images. So if these images can be optimized as such so that these images can be read by the search images then this will help your blog attain high ranks in search result pages. Optimizing the images will also help your blog to remain ahead in competition in compared to those who does not optimize their images. Search engines give significant value to the 'alt' and 'title' tags to know about the topic of the web page and uses this in ranking pages in relevant search results.
How To Use Alt Title Tags?
Alt tags stand for "Alternative Text" and are mainly displayed as alternative text in place of images in cases where images are disabled in the reader's browser - thus helping him by providing information about the image in his image disabled browser.
The search engines also use these alternative texts in the alt tags to find more about the topic of the page and use the information in ranking pages in SERPs.
This is an example how alt tags are used in image html codes :-
<img src="your image address" alt="alt text" />
The words in green is the address where your images are hosted and the words in red are the text that you use for your alt tags. Use keywords that you are trying to optimize your blog or post for as your alt tag text - this will give maximum SEO benefits to your blog post.
For example if you want to optimize your post for "affiliate marketing tips" then put "affiliate marketing tips " in place of the alt text. But never repeat the same alt text for all your pictures as this can be considered as spamming. Instead use different combinations of the keywords in different alt texts on the same page. You can use "tips for affiliate marketing", "money making tips for affiliate marketing", "affiliate marketing success tips", "affiliate marketing" and etc.
You can also use ".jpeg" or ".jpg" or ".png" at the end of some of the alt texts without changing the keywords to make them look different to the search engines. For example you can use "tips for affiliate marketing.jpeg" or "affiliate marketing tips.jpg".
The alt tag's text also gives more keyword relevance to your page as the keywords that you use within the alt tags are seen as words of your page by the search engines. So one more reason to add alt tags to your images in your blog or website.
Moreover many search engines consider alt tags as very important for images and this leads to a negative impact on the rankings of sites which does not use alt tags with there images. So never miss the alt tags when using images or pictures on your blog pages and websites.
How To Use Title Tags With Images?
Title tags gives the image or picture a title by providing more information on the image. The text within image title tags is displaced when you hover your cursor over the image. You can see the text within the title tags that I used for the images on this post by taking your cursor over one of the images.
The search engines also gives equal importance to the image title tags as it gives to the alt tags. It is used by the search engines to know more about the topic of the page. This information is used in the same way as in the case of alt tags in ranking pages in SERPs for relevant searches. The text within title tags also increases the keyword relevance of your post page as in the case of alt tags.
So adding title tags is important as it helps in further optimizing your image and thus the page for search engines. Title tags are placed within the same code as alt tags. An example of an image code with the title and alt tag added is :-
<img src="your image address" alt="alt text" title="title text"/>
The text in blue is the title tag text. You must use your main keywords and its variations as title tag text (as in the case of alt tags) - don't repeat. You can use the same text for the alt and title tags for the same picture but I avoid this for logical reasons and would advice you to do so. Avoid using the same text for the alt and title tags for the same picture.
Some Examples :-
<img src="your image address" alt="affiliate-marketing-tips" title="Affiliate marketing - Killer Tips"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="money making tips for affiliate marketing.jpeg" title="Money-making-tips-to-help-you-make-money-affiliate-marketing"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="affiliate marketing.jpg" title="Affiliate Marketing Tips For Success"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="Affiliate-marketing-success" title="Affiliate marketing resources"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="Earn-money-marketing-affiliate-products.jpeg" title="Earn money selling affiliate products"/>
OVER TO YOU - I hope the importance of alt tags and title tags is clear to you so remember to use these tags next time you add an image to your blog or website. This will lead to better optimization of your images and will improve your blog's chances of being ranked higher in search engine result pages for the keywords you have optimized your blog post or web page for.
This is an example how alt tags are used in image html codes :-
<img src="your image address" alt="alt text" />
The words in green is the address where your images are hosted and the words in red are the text that you use for your alt tags. Use keywords that you are trying to optimize your blog or post for as your alt tag text - this will give maximum SEO benefits to your blog post.
For example if you want to optimize your post for "affiliate marketing tips" then put "affiliate marketing tips " in place of the alt text. But never repeat the same alt text for all your pictures as this can be considered as spamming. Instead use different combinations of the keywords in different alt texts on the same page. You can use "tips for affiliate marketing", "money making tips for affiliate marketing", "affiliate marketing success tips", "affiliate marketing" and etc.
You can also use ".jpeg" or ".jpg" or ".png" at the end of some of the alt texts without changing the keywords to make them look different to the search engines. For example you can use "tips for affiliate marketing.jpeg" or "affiliate marketing tips.jpg".
The alt tag's text also gives more keyword relevance to your page as the keywords that you use within the alt tags are seen as words of your page by the search engines. So one more reason to add alt tags to your images in your blog or website.
Moreover many search engines consider alt tags as very important for images and this leads to a negative impact on the rankings of sites which does not use alt tags with there images. So never miss the alt tags when using images or pictures on your blog pages and websites.
How To Use Title Tags With Images?
Title tags gives the image or picture a title by providing more information on the image. The text within image title tags is displaced when you hover your cursor over the image. You can see the text within the title tags that I used for the images on this post by taking your cursor over one of the images.
The search engines also gives equal importance to the image title tags as it gives to the alt tags. It is used by the search engines to know more about the topic of the page. This information is used in the same way as in the case of alt tags in ranking pages in SERPs for relevant searches. The text within title tags also increases the keyword relevance of your post page as in the case of alt tags.
So adding title tags is important as it helps in further optimizing your image and thus the page for search engines. Title tags are placed within the same code as alt tags. An example of an image code with the title and alt tag added is :-
<img src="your image address" alt="alt text" title="title text"/>
The text in blue is the title tag text. You must use your main keywords and its variations as title tag text (as in the case of alt tags) - don't repeat. You can use the same text for the alt and title tags for the same picture but I avoid this for logical reasons and would advice you to do so. Avoid using the same text for the alt and title tags for the same picture.
Some Examples :-
<img src="your image address" alt="affiliate-marketing-tips" title="Affiliate marketing - Killer Tips"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="money making tips for affiliate marketing.jpeg" title="Money-making-tips-to-help-you-make-money-affiliate-marketing"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="affiliate marketing.jpg" title="Affiliate Marketing Tips For Success"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="Affiliate-marketing-success" title="Affiliate marketing resources"/>
<img src="your image address" alt="Earn-money-marketing-affiliate-products.jpeg" title="Earn money selling affiliate products"/>
OVER TO YOU - I hope the importance of alt tags and title tags is clear to you so remember to use these tags next time you add an image to your blog or website. This will lead to better optimization of your images and will improve your blog's chances of being ranked higher in search engine result pages for the keywords you have optimized your blog post or web page for.
1 comments:
Hi Mithu,
Very informative post. I used to do lots of image optimization too but less now as I was told by Nicolas Prudhon, SEO Strategist that too much is not too good for SEO. But I do more of this on my niche sites as there are lesser pictures and they are all on products whose names I'm ranking too.
Peter
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