The Importance Of Graphics In SEO

The Importance Of Graphics In SEO

We get a lot of positive feedback about our flowcharts.

It pays to remember the attention grabbing, and link-grabbing, power of graphics. It can be counter-intuitive for SEOs to use images, because we spend so much time thinking about the written (key)word.

This is a hunch, but I'm guessing peoples attention spans on the web are getting shorter, especially as they become accustomed to "quick hit" sites like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Digg, et al. Images help hook people in. Also, people scan web pages. Jakob Nielsen has long advocated breaking up copy using large headings, thus providing visual cues that help readers deal with large blocks of text.

And let's not forget easy top ten placement in Google's universal search results....

New Zealand Google Results

Or the conversion potential of placing Adsense near images...

So, rather than type a lot of words, I'll just let a series of images do the talking. At the end of the post, I'll provide some SEO tips for dealing with images.

1. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand (Really Boring) Words

US Spending Out Of Control

2. Flowchart A Process

SEO Process Flowchart

3. Outline A Strategy

PPC Process Flowchart

4. Mention Matt Cutts (Only Known To Get Mileage In SEO Circles)

Spamtastic!

5. Post A "We're All Having A Laugh At A Conference" Pic (Also Helpful If It Includes Matt Cutts)

Matt Cutts Naked

6. Make A Complicated Graph That Looks Authoritative, But No One Knows What It Really Means

Seriously, WTF!

7. You Know Who This Is Without Me Saying A Word, Right?

Cool SEO Blog

8. Not Sure How That Got In There

Sexy Girl

9. Or That

Sexy Guy

10. Can't Be Bothered Typing A Post? YouTube It Instead!

Tips On SEO-ing Images

  • Use the alt attribute and be descriptive
  • Put your images somewhere authoritative - like on Picassa, Wikipedia, or Flickr, and link them back to your site, where possible
  • Put words and descriptions around your graphics to provide context and be sure to tag photos with keyword loaded data
  • Link your images and graphics to other posts on your site
  • Use the keyword as the name of the image
Published: April 24, 2009 by A Reader in marketing

Comments

Seb FR
April 24, 2009 - 4:15pm

Nice alt

omarinho
April 24, 2009 - 7:45pm

Hehehe, beautiful horse.

TheMediaAnnexes
April 24, 2009 - 8:54pm

it's really fantastic information.

wd
April 25, 2009 - 6:32am

Indeed :)

Images carry much more weight as far as ranking points go with Google..

The traffic off of image search is nice too and converts well.

We've gotten tons of links for clients, all thanks to Google / Yahoo image search.

One case study I did recently that got us a nice link and plug on Bloomberg.com is below:

Optimizing websites to rank at the top of image search at Google, Yahoo and MSN... Worth it!!

http://www.wannadevelop.com/articles/optimizing-websites-image-search-ra...

Srividya
April 25, 2009 - 10:17am

Nice article.
Well explained.

dianeski
April 25, 2009 - 2:30pm

#6 is a hoot, too. :)

Paul Moore
April 25, 2009 - 10:26pm

Yes, images make a person stay on a site longer. I completely agree.

jduke6
April 27, 2009 - 8:43pm

Thanks for the info!

DianeV
April 29, 2009 - 9:33am

Peter, this post is hilarious, but gets the point across well. As well, not everyone is a fan of wall-to-wall text, and it can be easier to communicate concepts with images.

PeterD
April 30, 2009 - 12:44am

Thanks for the nice comments :)

Add new comment

(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.
(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.
(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.