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Using Images in SEO
Filed Under (Site Promotion) by Tricia on 03-10-2009
Most websites rely heavily on images to explain something to the site’s visitor or to give the page a more visually appealing look. Here is an example of the latter, it can be a photograph of the owner of the site or some kind of map, it can explain something to the visitor more easily than when using text.
Search engines, at the moment, can’t “read” images. The phrase “An image is worth a thousand words” is not true in SEO-land.
One of the most commonly known Search Engine Optimization tips(seo tips) that go around has to do with the way you name and tag the images that you use on your site. It’s fairly commonly accepted that Google measure your site’s worth by looking at the text on your blog, also Google’s spidering bots will take a look at the code you us in your image files.
I don’t suggest you to stop using images on your sites. You can use them where needed, but you should understand the consequences of using those images. They essentially hide content that is available for your users from search engines.
The easiest way to overcome this problem is to use the alt-attribute of your image. If the image is about your labrador dog, use “labrador dog” in the alt text. When people are doing an image search, this can help search engines find your image.
Please remember not to make the alt text “link to my labrador dog” if the image is also a link, as the < a > tag will have made that clear. I recommend you use some keywords in your image tags, it is still legitimate if you don’t stuff alt tags with all kinds of keywords.
Using alt tags this way also helps vision-impaired people. As they can’t see the page, just like search engines, they have to rely on the text that’s on your page. For many sites, it wouldn’t hurt to think more about this.
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