Visual content has been on incredible rise for a few years now: Content without images is hardly ever able to attract people, links and social media signals.
If you are not making the most of images for your content marketing, it’s a good time to start doing that now. Here’s an easy to-implement guide for you.
Related Article: The Rise of Visual Marketing
1. Image Optimization Basics
Images make a solid part of your content improving your search engine rankings (by making your content stand out and thus attracting links, increasing engagement and improving social media signals) but only if you take care of the basics. Here’s a quick image optimization checklist for you:
• Hosting: Media content increase server load, so make sure to select the most reliable host. I use Site Geek to discover affordable and reliable hosting companies to try. Their hosting comparison tool is just awesome.
• Page load time: To analyze your images, run your page past this free tool. It will show if any of your page elements slows down the page
• Filename: Make the file name keyword enriched, as well as the description when you upload it. When you make the file name, try to include both keywords involving what it is about, and the brand name you want it associated with.
• Alt text should be used to describe the image to search engines. Using your keywords there (where appropriate) will help your images to earn additional visibility in visual search engines. Refer to this article if you want to use image title as well to find out how to use both.
• Finally, make sure you are using images responsibly. Here’s a great guide to help you understand image copyrights and Creative Commons.
