Even the most experienced SEO experts until fairly recently could be accused of not taking the power of images into account when weighing up the potential of a web page to attract audiences.
They were laboring under the misconception that having an image on the page was attractive and added color, they were yet to learn the tremendous marketing potential of having an image on a page which would exactly match the particular message that the page was passing on.
What they had yet to discover is that search engine optimization is not only about the text on the page, but that a well chosen image or images could have just as much effect on driving potential deal closers on to a web page as even the most finely crafted verbal picture.
Make no mistake about it, Google’s Panda makes a lot of demands on the web builder and every legitimate method of drawing clients on to a web page should be used. However,adding weight to that argument is information recently released by Google showing that an ever-growing number of surfers (around 20%) are making their way onto web pages and being converted into a sale by way of Adsense. Through searching for an image rather than through the traditional method of typing in keywords is what is increasing overall sales and traffic.
That’s one of the principal reasons why an increasingly growing number of professional web designers and producers are making every effort to add relevant images to their web pages.
Once that commitment has been made, the next stage is to find the most relevant image to complement the text that will create an overall picture that will be difficult to resist.
Once a winning image has been sourced, the professional webmaster will be aware that it is not just a simple matter of sticking that image somewhere on the page, but rather preparing it so it will be readily recognizable by the spiders that will inevitably come crawling. Web spiders are colour blind and not particularly appreciative of fine art and they will need to be sent a message telling them what they are looking at on the page.
That’s why every image on every web page must have a few lines of Alt. text tag images added to it so that the spiders can recognize what the image contains and pass on the message to potential visitors. Also each image should have its unique title that is broadly descriptive and preferably not too long and with no spaces between the words, even though it does do some damage to the English language in the process.
By taking care to choose images that will compliment as much as possible the message on the page and ensuring that the Alt. text has been filled in as explanatory as possible, then without being too “flowery” these webpage images will go a long way in making that page a very valuable piece of online real estate.