April 28th, 2010 by Susie

People often think of SEO only in terms of textual content. When they look for ways of improving their number of backlinks (i.e inbound links) they forget that images these days can be worth a thousand words, and that internet journalism isn’t limited to editorial content alone. However, there are several reasons why image links are useful search engine optimisation tools.

1. Image backlinks give your site a natural link profile, which is attractive to the search engines. Search engines prefer link diversity. If you check your outbound links (i.e. those leading from within your site to URLs outside it) you’ll probably find that a lot of them are images. It’s the norm these days, especially with the growth in social media optimisation.

2. They’re more noticeable than textual links, so increase site traffic. Certain sites benefit from having a high number of image links. It’s been proven that, when the eye tracks editorial content, an image at the end of it is far more likely to generate a link.

3. They can improve your site in the way that your site is perceived. A site with lots of images portrays warmth and familiarity – a site with text alone looks far more academic and clinical (and, let’s face it, a lot more boring).

4. You should still use text links to pass on link juice, but you can combine them with image links.

5. Using images gives your site a different psychology. Whenever there are flame wars or complaints, they are always in textual form. Images are rarely used in a negative way – in fact, they’re more likely to be humorous. Hence, visitors are more likely to click on image links – because they know there won’t be anything negative or depressing waiting for them at the other end.

6. Search engine optimisation using keywords can be used on image links, just as in textual content. When you add a hyperlink to a blog post, you use embedded anchor text. The equivalent with image links is alternate text (alt) embedding. If alt text is employed, a textual description of the image appears if the image fails to load or a text-only browser or screen-reader is being used. It’s a great way to get keywords in – although if it’s overused, the search engines can look on it as being spam.

7. Images show up in image searches! Don’t underestimate the fact that many people, when a search is returned, instantly click the “Images” option at the top of the page and choose this option. This is especially true if your product has a highly visual content – paintings, decorating materials, fashions, jewellery etc.

8. SEO link building using images builds further links, and can be a great tool for viral marketing. Animals, especially, can be great for building viral links – e.g. the squirrel wedding crasher photo of 2009.

Most people use images in their sites, but few realise what effective search engine optimization tools they can be. However, they should be used sparingly, as they are apt to load more slowly than text links. That being said, if you’ve got a good photo – why not get it working for you?

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