Strategic Use of Images in Search Engine Optimization

When asses­sing page struc­tu­re and lay­out, the­re is a sub­tle, yet stra­te­gic way to use ima­ges in an SEO-frie­n­dly man­ner (bey­ond ALT tags) that impro­ves your search rank whi­le allo­wing you to inte­gra­te the neces­sa­ry mar­ke­ting message(s). Con­fu­sed? Let’s look at an example:

Sup­po­se you ope­ra­te a tra­vel site and you want to opti­mi­ze a given page for the term “Las Vegas hotel”. Sup­po­se that you also want to inc­lu­de an enti­cing mar­ke­ting mes­sa­ge such as “Book now and save 20%!”. The afo­re­men­tio­ned tagli­ne lacks descrip­ti­ve text, but posses­ses per­su­asi­ve cha­rac­te­ri­stics. That being said, you may want to pla­ce the tagli­ne in an ima­ge and the key phra­se (i.e. Las Vegas hotel) in a header tag. This pla­ces empha­sis on the desi­red term, yet still pro­vi­des a mar­ke­ting oppor­tu­ni­ty witho­ut com­pro­mi­sing key­word consistency.

In other words, ima­ges are a gre­at pla­ce to insert mar­ke­ting mes­sa­ges that lack the neces­sa­ry key­words and phra­ses. Leve­ra­ging this tech­ni­que will ensu­re that descrip­ti­ve text is inde­xed, whi­le less mar­ke­ting jar­gon is over­lo­oked. The com­bi­na­tion of key­­word-rich con­tent and enti­cing mes­sa­ging will satis­fy both sides of the stra­te­gic equation.