Are you wondering you can improve image SEO on your website? When
edited properly, image search can bring more viewers to your website.
To get something from image SEO, you need to help search engines find your images and index them for the right keywords.
In this article, we will give you a detailed guide on how you can optimize image SEO by following top proven methods.
The Speed of a website is very important in SEO and also plays a role user experience. Search engines always rank fast websites higher. This is also so for the searching of images.
Images can increase the overall page load time of a blog post. They take longer periods to download than text, which means your page loads slower if there are many large image files to download.
You need to be sure that images on your site are optimized for web. This can be a little difficult to get used to since many starters are not professionals in pictures and image editing.
Related: how to properly optimize images before uploading them to your website.
The better way to optimize images is by editing them on your computer using a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. This allows you to choose the right file format to create a small file size for the blog post.
You can also try out an image compression plugin such as EWWW Image Optimizer, Optimol, Short Pexel Image Optimizer and soon for WordPress. These image optimizer plugins allow you to automatically reduce file size before uploading an image to WordPress.
What and Why is Alt Text?
Alt text or alternative text is an HTML attribute added to the img tag which is used to display images on a web page. Incase an image refuses to load, the user gets the alt text as a description to the image .It looks like this in plain HTML code:
<img src="/justme.jpeg" alt="Just Me" />
It allows website owners to describe the image in plain text. The main benefit of the alternate text is to improve accessibility by enabling screen readers to read out the alt text for visually impaired users.
Alt text is also necessary for image SEO. It helps search engines understand the context of the image.
Modern search engines can recognize an image and it’s content by using artificial intelligence. However, they still rely on website owners to describe the image in their own words.
Alt text also accompanies images in Google image search, which helps users understand the image and improves your chances of getting new visitors.
Usually, alt text is not visible on your website. However if an image is broken or cannot be found, then your users will be able to see the alternate text with a broken image icon next to it to help users picture the image in their mind.
What is the Clear Difference Between Alt Text vs Title Of An Image
Alt text is used for accessibility and image SEO, while title field is used internally by WordPress and blogger for media search.
WordPress inserts the alt tag in the actual code used to display the image. The title tag is stored in the database to find and display images.
What is the Difference Between Alt Text vs Caption Of Images
The alt text is used to describe the image for search engines and screen readers. On the other hand, the caption is used to describe the image for all users.
Alt text is not visible on your website butcaptions are visible below your images.
The alt text is necessary for better image SEO on your website. The caption is sometimes optional and can be used only when you need to provide additional crucial information about the image to website visitors.
How Do You Add Alt Text, Title, and Caption to Images in WordPress
Alt text, title, and caption make up the image metadata that you can add to images when uploading them into WordPress.
When you add an image using the default image block, WordPress allows you to add caption and alt text for the image.
It automatically gives a title for the image from the file name. You can change the title by clicking on the edit button in the image block’s toolbar.
This will pop up the media uploader menu where you can enter your new title for the image.
You can also edit the alt tag and title for the images that you have already uploaded to WordPress. To do that, you need to visit Media to the Library page and find the image you want to do the editing on.
Simply clicking on an image will bring up the attachment details popup where you can enter title, alt text, and caption.
Remember: Changing an image’s alt tag or caption via Media Library will not change it in the posts and pages where the image is already used.
When Should I Use Captions for Images in WordPress
Captions allow you to provide additional details for an image to all your users. They are visible on the screen for all users including search engines and screen readers.
As you may have noticed that most websites don’t normally use captions with images in their blog posts or pages. That’s because captions are often not needed to explain an image.
Captions are more suitable in the following situation:
- Family or event photos
- Photos that need additional explanation describing the background story
- Product image galleries
Disabling Attachment Pages in WordPress
WordPress creates a page for all images you upload to your posts and pages. It is called the attachment page. This page just shows a larger version of the actual image and nothing else.
This can have a bad impact on SEO and on your search rankings. Search engines consider pages with little to no text as low quality or ‘thin content’.
This is why we advise users to disable the attachment pages on your website.
The simplest way to do this is by installing and activating the AIOSEO plugin. For more instructions, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, it automatically turns off attachment URLs. You can also manually turn off attachment pages in WordPress by visiting All in One SEO to the Search Appearance page and clicking on the Media tab.
From here, make sure that the ‘Redirect Attachment URLs’ option is set to ‘Attachment’.
If you are not using AIOSEO plugin, then you can install the Attachment Pages Redirect plugin. This plugin easily redirects people visiting the attachment page to the post where the image is displayed.
Pro Tips to Improve Image SEO
Adding alt tag is not the only thing you can do to improve image SEO. Following are a few additional tips that you should keep in mind when adding images to your blog posts.
1. Write descriptive alt text
Many starters often just use one or two words as alt text for the image. This makes the image too generic and harder to rank.
For example, instead of just ‘kittens’ use ‘Kittens playing with a yellow rubber duck’.
2. Try to Use descriptive image names for your images
Instead of saving your images as DSC00434.jpeg, you need to name them properly. Think of the keywords that users will type in the search to find that particular image.
Be more specific and descriptive in your image file names. For example, red-wooden-house.jpeg is better than just house.jpeg.
3. Always Provide context to your images
Search engines are getting smarter every day. They can recognize and categorize images quite well. However, they need you to provide context to the image.
Your images need to be relevant to the overall topic of the post or page. It is also helpful to place the image near the most relevant text in your article.
4. Follow the SEO best practices
You also need to follow the overall SEO guidelines for your website. This improves your overall search rankings including image search.
5. Use Authentic and original photographs and images
There are many free stock photography websites that you can use to find free images for your blog posts. However, the problem with stock photos is that they are used by thousands of websites.
Additional Reads
- How to fix common image issues in WordPress
- Beginners Guide on SEO
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