What are the Best Practices for Naming Images in SEO?
Google has shifted in image search as the digital space becomes more visual. Hence, image optimization is vital to boost your SEO efforts. Our Los Angeles search engine optimization services will audit your current visual content to improve your site’s on-page performance.
Search Engine Optimization in Los Angeles Regarding Image SEO Best Practices
Choose Relevant Images
The photos that you add to your post are published to support your copy or article content. Hence, it is vital to choose appropriate images. If the photo doesn’t make sense, then don’t use it. On the other hand, if you use relevant images, they can boost the performance of your site’s visual assets. The contextual image will also help users in understanding the context of the content. It shares a cohesive message with the reader.
Name the Images for Screen Readers and Google
Google can’t understand images. Rather, it uses the image name to comprehend what the photo is all about. Thus, the best practice in naming images for SEO purposes is to describe what the image is all about. But make sure that you are using SEO-friendly naming conventions. It means that the filenames are lower case and the words must be separated with hyphens.
Don’t Forget Alt Text
Alt text provides a stronger and more vital signal about the photo compared to the filename. By including image alt text, it will improve user experience and accessibility, as well as offer explicit and implicit benefits. It also ensures that your images are optimized for search, thereby, helping the photo rank better in image search.
How About Image Captions?
They are also vital as they add context to the image. Captions are also useful for readers to assist them in discovering or understanding the image. Although inserting keywords into the captions and alt text is necessary, don’t overuse it. Otherwise, Google will consider it spammy.
How Google Crawls Images?
Google doesn’t crawl images often because they don’t change a lot. If you change the filenames of your images across the site, it takes a lot of time for Google to see them. Thus, changing them all at once may not significantly help boost your ranking. You should only do it if it’s really critical. In that case, changing the file names of images that have been crawled and indexed may not really improve traffic to your site. However, it is still vital for you to use the right filename before you upload it to your site.
Because Google doesn’t crawl images too often, it may be a waste of time to edit the filenames of the images on your site all at once. That’s why you should only edit them if necessary.
Do You Need Further Help Optimizing Your Images?
Images are vital to improving your message to your audience. If you need help optimizing your website, talk to us today and find out about Los Angeles search engine optimization. Call us here: (855) 605-7361.
