It never ceases to amaze me that I still see people who call themselves “SEO copywriters” producing content with no images. This is simply insane. If you strive to be an SEO copywriter or produce your own content, you must use images, especially if the page is supposed to rank well in search. There are 10,000 reasons why you need images in with your content; below is just the tip of the iceberg.
- Rich content. When is the last time you saw a magazine cover with no image on it? People, and therefor search engines, like rich content. Images and videos are great additions to text.
- SEO. This is “SEO copywriting“, right? This is one of those times in life when size matters. Putting up 2MB pictures on your blog reduces page speed. Name the photo something reasonable. Make sure it has an ALT tag. Don’t screw this up. If you’re an SEO newbie with images read this guide. And please title the image. Titles & ALT tags affect SEO in a variety of ways. The most obvious to me is usability. When choosing an ALT tag, don’t overthink it, just keep in mind what would be useful to someone who cannot see the image and you’ll be good- blind people use the Internet too; if your content doesn’t work for them, you’re doing it wrong.
- Share-ability. My dad used to say “Do something, even if it’s wrong!” It is darn near impossible to share something without an image. If there are no images, it is going to look awful and nobody is going to share it. This greatly reduces the chances for inbound links as well, and links are an extremely important SEO factor. Sometimes, it posts with no image can’t even be shared at all; for example, if there are no images, your content images can’t be pinned on Pinterest and if the content is shared on Facebook it is going to just be a hideous link that nobody clicks on. If your content isn’t share-able, you’re probably doing it wrong. If you must, share an ugly image. I suppose it is possble for this to be misinterpreted but almost any image is better than no image. Now, where did I put that Monkfish image? Oh yes, there he is. Hello Monkfish.
