Can You See It? The Importance Of Images Will Shock You!

I have a small blog that I use for creative purposes only.  I never promoted the blog, and I write under a pen name. I’ve also never looked at the stats for that blog or tried to follow any SEO practices.

But recently when I signed onto the dashboard, I decided to take a look at the WordPress stats for the first time. I was blown away.

This little blog of mine is getting hundreds of visitors from search engines.  I couldn’t believe it, but it reminds me of a tip I’ve been using for years.

It’s almost ridiculously easy to rank for images. Yup.

I’ve ranked highly and received a lot of traffic for all kinds of images. People, places, things, and image quotes are huge. This equation applies to every conceivable topic.

Moz reported that “A 2017 report by Jumpshot and Moz confirms that visual search is on the rise, with 27 percent of all searches across 10 major properties being for images.” 

And Search Engine Journal has a great article about Pinterest’s Len’s Technology. 

So, how can you benefit from this rising trend for great images?

Make your images user-friendly. Create images that not only promote your brand or business but ones that people will search for and want to see. Make them clickable and shareable.

Create images that are an optimal size for sharing, like 1024×537 rectangles for Twitter and Facebook links, 800x whatever portraits for Pinterest, Google plus, and even Tumblr, and 1024×1024 squares for Instagram.

Help search engines promote your images for you by offering unique and popular ones.

You may want to put a logo on images but if you wish to make them shareable don’t cover too much of the image with your information. You’ll want all of your images to be something that regular people like and want to pass along.

Also, create images that other people in your business like and want to re-use. When someone else uses your image, you will often receive a backlink to your site.

Don’t just talk to people via writing, show them!

The worse case scenario is that an image could bring someone to your blog and then hopefully they’ll stay for more of your other content.

“Images can work as an introduction and gateway to your site and business.” (-Amanda Ricks)

Here are two screenshots of the WordPress dashboard media library where you can properly optimize your images for sharing.

Remember to fill in the title with a real title, IMG 123, just doesn’t cut it. Also, always fill in the alt text. You can include your site’s URL and a short description.

Here, you can link to the attachment page or a custom URL. Note that by default WordPress treats all images as unique posts unless you link to your post manually. Either the attachment page or the post is okay to link to for creating shareable images.

Remember, as in all content creation, sharing freely is the best way to become a resource and expert.