Tips to Rank On Google Image Search in 2023
How important is image SEO for your SEO strategy in Adelaide? Well, over the years, people’s attention spans have drastically reduced. The affinity for visual content is higher today than ever.
Like the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”, the relevance of this phrase has greatly increased in the internet era. Search engines are doing the heavy lifting of finding the most relevant images, providing users with opportunities to view images with just a button click.
Image SEO
Using best practices to ensure that your images are crawled, indexed, and displayed on the SERP for relevant search queries is called ‘image SEO’. It is not only done to rank higher on the search engines but also to get shown by Google on the web results pages. In most cases, results accompanying images get a higher click-through rate.
Why Add Images?
Monotony discourages users from consuming your content. When they feel bored, they will likely click the button to go to another site. That is why websites use images in abundance, evenly distributed in sections, to keep the user interested.
Therefore, a website user will look for something similar on another site with more images. However, using many images does not improve your ranking; instead, use the relevant ones. Hence, your images must be valuable to users and search engines.
How Does Google Image Search Work?
Google search images use superior algorithms to find images relevant to the search query entered by a website user. The methods that are used in retrieving the relevant images include:
1. Image Search by Context
Here, the search engines will identify images with surrounding text that match the search query. Images matching the intent of the user are displayed on the site. Adding more content to the images helps users better understand the representation of the images, thereby increasing their chances of ranking higher. Google advises that the content be informative and understandable to the users for a higher ranking. Here is how you can achieve this:
- Contextual and Original Image: The image you add should be relevant to the main topic represented by your page. Publishing scraped content or non-original images reduces your chances of ranking higher.
- Right Placement: Where you place the image determines whether it will appear in the search. If you put the images below the most important part of your content, you will have less chance of ranking higher, unlike placing them on top of the most critical information.
- Authority of the Site: A site is good in one niche and not an expert in all fields.
- Mobile-Friendliness: It would be best if you made your website responsive for a chance of a higher ranking in the search engines. Non-responsive images give a negative user experience.
- Define a Proper Image File: The file name of your image is critical in your ranking.
- Meta title: A meta title should be closely relevant to the search query. For a higher ranking of your images, the meta title must be optimised with the right keywords people use on search engines.
- Make Use of Structured Data: Structured products, recipes, and videos are supported by Google image search. As such, adding the images to the schema data of an e-commerce website improves image search visibility.
2. Reverse Image Search
This is one of the most used techniques by most search engines. The users are asked to upload an image as input instead of text. The search engine will then display the results of images closely related to the upload. Two search-by-image options are available, including uploading an image from your computer and entering the URL of your image.
Optimising Your Images for On-Page SEO
Here are the best practices to adhere to optimise your images for your website;
- Keyword research
- Choose the right image format
- Use WebP format
- Create a good image URL
- Optimise Alt text of images
- Optimise image caption, title and description
- Use image sitemaps
- Don’t over-optimise
Conclusion
Making your images SEO-friendly is important for optimising your website’s visibility in search engine results. Remember, while optimising your images, it’s essential to maintain a balance between image quality and file size. Prioritise user experience by providing visually appealing images that load quickly.
