Images,
graphics and thumbnails play an important role in the overall look and
feel of your website. They can greatly improve the usefulness of your
site; making it more user-friendly and easier to navigate. More
importantly, the visual images on your site can be optimized to improve
your search engine rankings.
Despite their importance, many webmasters ignore
images or graphics when it comes to optimizing their web pages. Don't
make the same mistake.
There are some simple rules to follow when using SEO
with your onsite graphics. Here are a few tips:
First, you must know exactly what an 'Alt Image Tag' is
in order to optimize for the search engines. You must also realize
search engine robots can't see your images, they can only read text -
the text in your Alt Image Tags. So you have to construct your Alt Image
Tags with this factor in mind and feed these robots with your popular
keywords. Search engine robots usually spider popular sites every day or
so.
What
is an Alt Image Tag?
Every image, graphic or thumbnail on your site will have
html code similar to this:
<img src="http://www.YourDomain.com/images/logo.jpg"
Alt="Your
Keyword Image" width="600" height="200">
Your Alt Image Tag will be:
alt="Your Keyword Image"
Always include an Alt Image Tag description for all your
images, graphics and thumbnails. This includes all headers, background
images and even thumbnails of other sites, if you use them. Keep your
descriptions of the images short and related to the image itself. It
would be a good idea to end each description with the word photo, image
or graphic.
Many marketers like to include their main keyword or
keyword phrase they are targeting in the Alt Image Tag. They also place
this keyword phrase in the text on their page, in the title tag, meta
description and many alert marketers also place their keyword phrase in
the URL of that page. You should also include your keyword phrase in the
last 25 words on the same page.
Feed the spiders but be careful!
DON'T repeat the same keyword or keyword phrase numerous
time on your page in the image tags - this may be seen as keyword
spamming by the robots.
Using plurals and variations of your keyword is fine,
such as: faxing service, fax services, efax services.
Many marketers also use misspelled keywords in the Alt
Image Tag as it can only be seen when the image is scrolled over.
Spiders can't spell but they will index these misspelled keywords and
bring in extra traffíc!
Graphics
The ordinary website will have more than just photos or
images on a webpage. You will have headers, backgrounds, liners, etc.
all of these should also have Alt Image Tags. Although in this age of
the broadband Internet, your page loading time is not a major factor as
it once was, you should still reduce all your images so that they will
download quickly.
Many professional web designers place unneeded or
useless keywords (ones that get no searches) in the graphics on their
site. For example, instead of placing 'Welcome to our site' in a
headline - place it in a graphic at the top of your page. This will free
up your headline for your main keywords.
Placing these useless words in a graphic where the
robots can't read them - frees up your Alt Tags for keywords that you're
promoting. Place your main keywords in the headline for better SEO. Keep
feeding those spiders!
But always keep in mind, you are creating your content
or web pages for real live human beings so you should chëck to see what
your site's graphics look like in the different browsers. Try here: www.anybrowser.com.
Since we have an ever increasing number of different
screen or display sizes, always chëck to see how your graphics look on
a different size display. You might be horrified to find your perfectly
designed page on a 15" PC is totally distorted on a 17"
widescreen laptop.
Needless to say, for site consistency, keep all your
background images and logos the same throughout your site. Same goes for
your fonts and text size, it will keep your site's visitors more focused
and on track.
Thumbnails
Many online sites use thumbnails to raise the
professional quality of their sites. It makes for a higher standard of
design, not to mention, it will increase the usability of your site. It
will also increase your clíck thru rates.
Thumbnails are screen capture shots of a website. They
give the surfer some idea of what a site looks like before they visit
that site. In a billion site Internet, this can be very important for
the promotion of your site.
Using thumbnails will increase the visibility of your
site and make it stand out from the crowd. Many professional sites like
AOL, Network Solutions, and Alexa use thumbnails. Any site can use
thumbnails - chëck the resource box at the end of this article for
further directions on how to place thumbnails on your own site or sites.
Conclusion
Using images, graphics and thumbnails to promote your
site can be easily done if you use the advice given above. Always
remember to use Alt Image Tags to position your selected keywords or
keywords in the search engines. Consistently do this over a long period
of time and you will see your site rise in the rankings. Keep those
spiders well fed and happy!
More importantly, using these visual aids will also
improve the friendliness and usability of your site. It will help raise
the professional look and feel of your site so that other webmasters and
sites will want to link to your site; further increasing your rankings
and the popularity of your site.
Don't underestimate the power of a simple image - it can
do wonders for your site.
