12 image search engine optimization best practices to promote more natural traffic

When generating more natural traffic for our website, we started researching keywords, optimized content And various page SEO strategies.

We also study the SEO factors outside the page, such as getting more reverse links and social sharing.

Why do you restrict your use of the same old strategy over and over again?

An underestimated strategy to promote more natural traffic is to optimize the image of search engines.

This is correct.

Google Photo Search helps your website more visitors and traffic!

A great content is when you get a proper balance between text and images.

Although text is essential, images are equally important. They add urgent visual style to the original tedious text.

According to Buzzsumo’s research on more than 1 million articles, they found that compared with articles with less pictures, adding a picture every 75-100 words to the article can help double the number of sharing. This definitely helps to increase the traffic on the website!

If you are searching for text content, we guess you will also look for visual content. This is where Google’s picture search play a role.

Searching on Google will display images on the top of the result page from time to time. 27.3% of Google search query returns the image. (Moz, 2020).

In short, image search is the undeveloped source of the potential traffic of your website, and it is also our formulation of an image search engine optimization strategy It’s time. If you haven’t, that’s it!

This article will introduce some basic knowledge about the image SEO, why it is necessary and the factors that affect your image ranking. Finally, we will introduce some techniques about optimizing images to introduce the source of natural traffic.

So, first …

What is the optimization of image search engine?

The process of optimizing your website image to make search engine reptiles more likely to access them is the optimization of image search engines.

Generally, search engines will capture the content of the website in order to provide their users with the most related and accurate results. The same algorithm is also used for images.

Image SEO may just be a strategy to change the rules required to increase traffic in our website.

After all, 62% of the millennials choose visual search instead of any other search type. (Source: American Business Information)

There are some interesting facts about image search here,

more than 30% of Google search query returned image (Source: Moz)

    [

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123] The daily comprehensive view of the search user of Google Pictures exceeds 1 billion (Source: Quora)

However, we did not make full use of this potential SEO strategy!

Why is the image SEO important?

    Let us start with some more interesting facts,

  • 90% of the information consumed by the brain is visual information
  • The speed of the brain processing visual content is faster than text 60,000 times
  • 40% of the response to the visual content is better than the response to the text content

Including information charts to help increase traffic by 12%

(Source source : Hubspot)

We can include more facts. All of this makes people understand a simple fact, that is, the visual effect in the text will increase your overall website traffic.

Images are essential for SEO. By containing images on your page/post, you can allow visitors to be interested in your content, create more participation, and may also share your content.

As the time spent increased in content, you are also reducing the jump rate of the website. What is the jump rate?

The jump rate is used to measure the percentage of people who leave your website/webpage without doing anything. They will not click on any link, nor will they navigate to other pages of your website, nor will they fill in any form.

Simply put, they \”rebound\” from your website without performing any operation. In various reasons, this mainly happened when the visitors did not find anything they were interested in.

As far as an article is concerned, if the visitors are tired of seeing endless text content on the page, they may leave. In other words, this is also a good way to improve the user experience.

Your picture can help you rank higher on Google and get more traffic. Having said that, it is best to understand the factors that affect your image ranking.

Factors affecting your SEO image ranking

We first understand the factors that affect your image ranking. Once we know this, we will introduce the skills to improve ranking in the next part.

1. Can you find your picture?

If you can’t find you on a search engine, you will miss a lot of potential traffic.

The search engine sends their robots to capture and index your website. When crawling the website, the robot will index your content, that is, text and images.

You must ensure that your image is discovered, captured and indexed by search engines.

The image contains the image in your XML site map that allows search engines to find, grab and index your image easier.

You can include images in the existing site map, or you can create a dedicated XML site map to include images. Choosing is yours in the end.

In your Robots.txt file, make sure you do picture.

Another prompt is to ensure that there is no noImageIndex instruction on your page, that is, you should not have the following code lines on your page.

\u0026 lt; meta name \u003d \”Robot\” content \u003d \”noImageIndex\” \u0026 gt;

This line of code tells the search engine not to index the image on the page.

2. What is your domain and page permissions?

Let’s give us an example here.

Search \”WordPress\” and check the previous results.

The unique five results are,

    wordpress.org

  • Wikipedia

  • iThemes.com

Well, WordPress.org has three characteristics.

Do you know what is the (domain permissions) DA and (page permissions) PA of WordPress.org?

Moz bar representative WordPress.org’s PA is 100 and DA is 98.

As for Wikipedia, PA and DA are 81 and 94, respectively.

What is DA and PA? Moz has developed measurement standards, namely domain permissions and page permissions, which represent the permissions of domain or page. It shows the correlation and dominant position of the page or domain in its niche.

It is a number from 1 to 100, with a maximum of 100. The higher the numbers, the easier it is to be on the search results page.

For a brief remembrance, if a website is very popular and is regarded as all information related to specific themes, it will get many reverse links and social sharing.

This tells Google’s website is an authoritative website. As a result, the increase in domain scores will eventually help the website ranking higher.

Back to our topic, if your picture appears on such an authoritative website/web page, it will naturally benefit from it.

3. Is your picture related to page content? Page content and images go hand in hand. The image that is completely unrelated to the text content is not helpful to your ranking.

Why do we say that?

Go to Google’s Cloud Vision API.

Due to the advancement of machine learning, Google does not need an alt tag (you specified by the image) or a valid file name Understand all the contents of the image. For example, we added a file named \”Screen Shot 2021-04-07 AT 9.28.00 AM\”, and there is absolutely no Alt tag or title. As you can see from the generated report, Google Cloud’s Vision API can almost tell you all the content of this picture.

Therefore, next time you add pictures in your post, you may need to re -consider adding pictures related to your content!

4. Is your website picture loading fast? Page speed is an important ranking factor. There are more reasons to ensure that your website pictures are loaded faster. Some prompts (we will introduce more prompts later here) to ensure that it does choose the correct image format, the correct image size and compressed image.

5. Architecture

Do you want to use SCHEMA to mark any image? Do you want to win selected clips on the results page of the search engine of SCHEMA?

You can mark any images of your content with SCHEMA. This helps the search engine to understand its context and have the opportunity to win the location of the selection.

Using the image in the clip, it not only stands out of the crowd, but also you can get more click -through rates.

The SEO picture optimization skills you must know

Now we have introduced the factors that affect image optimization, let us introduce some techniques that optimize images and increase traffic.

1. Select the correct image format Before adding the image to the site You need to ensure that the correct file type is selected. Although there are multiple image formats to choose from, PNG and JPEG are the most common file types on the network.

With PNG, you can get better quality images, but it does have a larger file size. On the other hand, using JPEG, you can adjust the quality and file size to achieve appropriate balance.

Ideally, when using larger and more intuitive images (such as photos and PNG for migrants, screenshots and figures generated by computer), JPEG should be used.

Whether you use JPG, GIF, PNG, ICO, SVG or Webp, each image format has its unique features, especially in image compression. Therefore, obtaining the image format in advance is an important aspect.

2. Compress your picture

Do you know the average picture of the picture accounts for 25% of the total webpage weight? (Source: http archive)

Considering the page speed is an important factor in determining the ranking of the websiteTherefore, the size of the file must be paid to the size of the file. Reducing any byte will definitely help. Before uploading the image to your site, please compress them. Use tools such as Photoshop that can create optimized images. But what if you are not used to using such image editing tools? No sweat! There is a series of tools to help you solve this problem. From the online tool to the plug -in that can be installed on the WordPress website, we list some popular tools that can be used to compress images. These plugins can reduce file size and will not affect image quality. Just ensure that the image is compressed outside its server. In this way, it will not affect the loading time on your website.

Little PNG

another tool for compressed PNG and JPEG files. This time, you compressed the image online. You don’t have to worry about installing it on your WordPress website.

TinyPng allows you to compress the image online. You can compress 20 images at a time. Want to compress more than 20 images at a time? Enter the professional version!

Imagine

Imagify is the most advanced WordPress plug -in, which allows you to optimize the image directly from the WordPress dashboard Essence

Just click to get a brighter image without the need to sacrifice the quality.

After activation, all your images will be automatically optimized when uploading to WordPress. Continue to try Imagify for free. Short Pixel

Shortpixel is a free and easy light light light use Overgate WordPress plug -in. Just install it and forget it. Using Shortpixel WordPress plug -in, you only need to click on to compress all images and PDF documents.

When you upload the new image to the WordPress website, they will automatically compress and optimize.

confused

SMUSH is a very popular WordPress plug -in with more than 1 million active installations.

With Smush, you can optimize images in the WordPress dashboard, enable delay loading, adjust the size of the image, and compressed images.

Like other WordPress plugins, the image will automatically compress when it is uploaded to your site after installation.

3. Create the correct image file name What is your image file name? Remember our previous random file name- \”Screen Shot 2021-04-07 AT 9.28.00 AM.Png\”? Well, the less we see, the better!

When creating the correct file name, it is strongly recommended that you include the keywords you want to position on this specific page. This is very useful for search engine optimization.

Although Google’s Cloud Vision API understands the context behind the image, the image name of the friendly image shows the theme of the image to Google.

Random file name (such as the file name we use above) does not help Google understand all the contents of the picture.

Therefore, on the contrary, file names such as \”SEO-COURSE.PNG\” are indeed a need for blood.

4. Create a unique image

Okay, what is the common thing in many corporate websites and consulting companies?

They have the same management and those who work for them. Want to know how to come from? Because they almost all use the same inventory pictures!

Guess how confused Google will be.

To be serious, if you want to stand out in the crowd, please use the original photos and images instead of ordinary inventory photos.

Although the inventory photo may be optimized well, they will not have the same effect or SEO advantage as the original high -quality image.

Using a big picture may also help it get recommendation in Google Discover.

5. Use SEO friendly alternative text

Did you notice the descriptive text that appears when you hang the mouse on the image, as shown below?

This is called alt text and even replaced text.

What happens when the image cannot be loaded for some reason? If it is a small image, it may be ignored. On the contrary, if the picture occupies a large amount of space on the page, then it mayNot suitable for your visitors.

ALT text is your reserve plan.

When the image cannot be loaded for any reason, Alt text will appear in its position. Although the image damage is not ideal, Google believes that adding Alt text is a good page SEO practice. It helps to convey the content of the image file to Google. When the image is not loaded, you will see a image box, and there is an alt label in the upper left corner. Make sure that ALT tags are suitable for images and make pictures related. Therefore, next time you add alt text to the image, you need to add a related text.

This is a prompt you can consider. Use page keywords in alt text.

For example, if you are promoting the SEO course for beginners, the image Alt text does not have to be \”SEO courses\”. Instead, you can use it as \”beginner’s SEO course\”.

Therefore, instead of containing Alt text in such images,

\u0026 lt; img src \u003d \”seo -jpg\” alt \u003d \”seo\”/\u0026 gt;

] The better method is,

\u0026 lt; img src \u003d \”seo-course.jpg\” alt \u003d \”

SEO beginner course

\”/\u0026 gt;

6. Your page title and description

notice how your page title and description appear on the image search results page?

Google picture will generate a title and fragment to describe each result. This helps visitors decide whether to click the result. Google extracts this information from various sources, such as your page title, description, meta mark, etc. By providing this information and following Google’s title and abstract guide, you can help Google improve the title and summary quality displayed for your web page.

7. Define the image size

When you access the webpage, please pay attention to how the page jumps when the image is loaded. Why is this? This is because the width and height of the image has not been specified.

Defining the width and height of the image is a good approach. It allows the browser to adjust the image size and prevent the page from jumping when loading. Eventually bring a better user experience.

Considering that Google’s Core Web Vitals may become the main ranking factor, you needConsider the size of image to prevent cumulative layout offset (CLS).

CLS is a measuring standard that is used to measure the sum of all single layout conversion scores that occur during the entire life cycle of the page. A ideal CLS score is 0.1 or lower.

Make sure that the width and height attributes are ensured. For example, through our previous examples, although there can be the following content,

\u0026 lt; img src \u003d \”seo-course.jpg\” alt \u003d \”SEO beginner course\”/\u0026 gt;

ideal The method is as follows,

\u0026 lt; img src \u003d \”seo-course.jpg\” alt \u003d \”SEO beginner course\” width \u003d \”100\” height \u003d \”100\” /\u0026 gt;

This Considering that the width and height of the image size is 100.

Including the width and height of the image, how much space is needed to prevent any content from moving and reducing the CLS score.

8. Create the correct image file structure

One of the main updates of Google image guidelines is to use file names and file paths to rank images.

For example, if you have multiple products in your online store instead of uploading all images to the general media or image folders, it is meaningful to create a category and subclass.

Therefore, if you have a clothing store to sell men’s and women’s T-shirts and shirts instead of uploading images to folders, for example:

/Images /Tshirt-Men-1. jpg

/images/t-shirt-women-1.jpg

  • The better way to solve this problem is to use the following folders:
  • /Images/men/tshirts/white.jpg 193: 123] /IMAGES/wome/tshirts/white.jpg 193. Structured your image into such categories and subcutners is also helping Google Better choice for understanding.

9. Create a response image

    Considering that the mobile search exceeds desktop search, your website must be responsible.

  • Do you know the default Googlebot crawling tool of the website is now a mobile crawling tool?

  • Suppose you upload 1000 pixel wide pictures to your website.

If the user is inThere are small display (e.g. 320 pixel wide) mobile devices access your website, and their browsers must still load 1000 pixel images.

The image of 1000px looks very good. The same is true of 320 pixels on mobile devices.

Did you find the problem here?

A image of 1000px and 320px looks good on mobile devices. So why should you load 1000px images and waste bandwidth. As the page loading time is prolonged, we will affect our SEO.

Enter

srcSet

.

This simple code tells the browser to load different versions of images for different screen resolution.

Use

SRCSET

attribute, you can specify the image URL list and size description. You still need to use

src

attributes to specify backup and default images to prevent the browser from supporting SRCSET property.

This is a typical grammar …

\u0026 lt; img srcset \u003d \”ImageURL SIZE, ImageURL SIZE, ImageURL SIZE\” src \u003d \”Default Image\” \u0026 GT; This is a more real-time example: \u0026 lt; IMG srcSet \u003d \”/wp-Content/uploads/image4x.jpg 4x,

/wp-confroids/uploads/uploads/uploads /Image3x.jpg 3X,

/WP-Content/UPLOADS/image2x.jpg 2x,

/wp-Content/image1x.jpg 1x \”

src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d src \u003d sRC \u003d \u0026 quot; /wp-content/uploads/image-default.jpg\u0026quot; \u0026 gt;

The common method containing size information is to mark each file according to the image density in the srcset property.

In the above example, it is completed by adding 1x, 2X, 3X, and 4X after the URL.

The good news is that WordPress is responsible for all these (starting from WordPress 5.3).

RightFor each picture you uploaded, WordPress will automatically generate the following versions by default:

Shining diagram: adjustment to 150 pixel x 150 pixels

: adjustment to 300 pixel x 300 pixels

Middle University: Adjustment to 768px width Large: adjustment to 1024 x 1024 pixel

complete: original image

  • [ 123]

  • More importantly, WordPress also automatically adds SRCSET attributes. Continue to check the WordPress source code of the srcset property.

  • 10. Consider delay loading

  • When you view the content on the first screen, why should you load the image located at the bottom of the page?

This is the problem that delay loading can help you solve! No one likes slow websites. Because the image and other elements need time to load, it will not only affect your page speed and ranking, but also make your website visitors discouraged. Do you know, if your website loading time is extended for 3 seconds, 40% of visitors will give up the website? The delay of 1 second will cause your website to reduce the conversion rate by 7%? (Source: Neil Patt)

So far, the most loaded time on the website. The more images on the page, the more page loading time.

Delay loading helps to solve all these problems.

Delay loading refers to the browser delayed loading image, video and other objects until they really need to be displayed. The image is loaded when you scroll.

Considering the page speed is the key factor of search engine rankings, so that your image delay loading is an option you can consider.

To enable image delay loading on your WordPress site, you can consider using one of the delay loading plugins that can be used in the WordPress repression.

11. Content delivery network (CDN)

Optimized, compressed and delayed your image. As far as SEO is concerned, all these are good choices.

However, we must quickly deliver images. This can be implemented using CDN.

So what is the content delivery network (CDN)?

In short, CDN is like a copy of your website on servers around the world. When visiting your website from a specific location, the server closest to this location will provide your websiteServe.

CDN hosting WordPress static content copies, such as images, videos, CSS, and JavaScript.

Through access to the server closest to the request position, you can greatly reduce the page loading time.

12. Browser cache

Each time the image is loaded, a request will be sent to the server. For more images, server requests are much higher.

Are these the only requests issued to the server? no way!

Similar requirements for various other websites have also been put forward. All of this leads to a decrease in page loading.

This is where the browser cache play.

The browser cache is web files such as temporary storage web pages and images to reduce server delay. Because the image is stored in the user’s browser, there is no need to load them repeatedly from the server.

Similarly, if you are using a WordPress website, you can install a browser cache plugin from WordPress repression.

Summary …

The most important thing is to create an excellent user experience!

All small things are important. Your visual content must be related to your page theme. Good visual content on the page is equally important as text content. Optimizing page content, adding architecture, etc. will help generate text fragments for your images.

Want to know more about image optimization? Check our special articles on how to optimize images for performance and SEO!

Tools to help you analyze image optimization

From analyzing your image to page speed, we list some tools to help you optimize the overall performance of the website.

Website speed test

We now know how much benefits are optimized.

If you can use tools to help analyze your image?

The tool can even be recommended to use image formats, best file size and image quality.

Well, what you need is the website speed test.

Website speed test tool surpassed simple image compression. It will generate a report that clearly provides detailed optimization insights on how to improve the overall performance of the image size, quality, format, and other parameters.

Little PNG

How fast is your website?

How is its performance?

On your websiteWill a large number of pictures drag the performance?

Well, you understand!

Use TinyPng analyzer to run all your website images, and provide you with detailed detailed image optimization statistics on your websiteReport.

Pub up

Search engine optimization takes time.Whether it is inside, outside the page, or in our case, the image SEO.It takes time to determine these more fine points, and it becomes better with more understanding and experience.

Although this is the case, considering the influx of natural traffic that SEO can bring, it is worthy of effort. This article covers all information about the image SEO you need to understand.From selecting the correct image format to the best file name, we have tried to include everything required to optimize the image on the website. Of course, once you master these techniques, don’t be complacent.SEO is constantly changing and needs to be continuously optimized.

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