All these are extremely useful pointers to help attain a high rank in Google. But because search engine crawlers can only read text, they leave out some of the most important aspects of your site—those beautiful images and graphics. With the right search engine optimization techniques, however, those visual elements can significantly improve your search engine ranking.

Let’s make your photos work to optimize your site through these simple techniques:

1. Reduce your file size.

Search engines rank sites that load quickly during a search higher than those that don’t. Web content with heavy file sizes such as photos can bog downloading speed.

To hasten the loading speed, reduce the file size of your photos. After editing or enhancing your images, you can use an online compression tool like Compress JPEG or TinyPNG. Just upload your visuals, and the tool will do the rest.

2. Use thumbnails.

You may want to retain the quality and size of your images for more impressive views. For this, you may opt to use thumbnails in your website’s gallery.

Thumbnails allow your page to load quickly. If the user finds a thumbnail that looks particularly interesting, he can click on it for a full view of the image.

You can create thumbnails via Photoshop or online photo editors such as PicMonkey, Fotor, Pixlr, or GIMP.

3. Rename your images.

Your camera automatically labels images as a series of letters and numbers. For example, it might be labeled as “DSCN0001.” For search engines, this does not make sense, and this makes it harder for crawlers to find the image.

A better way is to rename the image to something that actually describes the image. For example, rather than “DSCN0001,” you can rename it to “Two-Floor House in Miami” or “Property in Miami.”

4. Include alt text.

Technically, search engines can only read text. That means they are unable to “see” photos. Thus, to enable robots to crawl over and index your photos, you need to describe your image with alt, or alternative text.

Alt-text is added in the HTML code. Below is an example of an image’s HTML code with the alt text “two-floor house in Miami.” The search engine crawlers may not be able to see your images, but they can read and index “Two-floor house in Miami.”

The alt tag is located in the image source code (encircled in red). You can see and edit the alt tag by using the HTML text view of your CMS (content management system). The photo below indicates an example using a WordPress CMS.

Often, alt text is highlighted when the cursor hovers over the image. They are displayed when browsers have problems in rendering the images, usually due to slow internet speed. Alt-text is also used by visually impaired people who have trouble viewing images.

5. Caption your images.

Captions tell a story behind the photo, add more information about the image and encourage readers to take action. In essence, it makes a photo more interesting.

Because search engine crawlers read text, including a caption, makes the photo search engine friendly.

More Than Industry Leading

Real Estate Photo Editing

PhotoUp is the end-to-end business platform for real estate photographers.

Join PhotoUp Learn More

6. Use the right keywords.

As much as possible, include strategic keywords in your alt text, image title, and the text near the image. You can determine the right keywords by using online tools such as Google Adwords, Google Trends, Moz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool, SEMRush, and more.

Check out this article about how to use keywords correctly.

7. Keep your text short and concise.

As much as possible, descriptions and captions should be no more than 60 characters, including spaces. That’s because Google truncates, or cuts, any character beyond that length.

If a lengthier text is desired, make sure that the keyword is somewhere at the beginning of the phrase.

8. Use image sitemaps.

Image sitemaps allow search engines crawlers to find information about images more easily. They also enable crawlers to find images that are loaded using JavaScript, which is usually the case with slider galleries and product images.

You can add the image information in your website’s existing sitemap, or you can have a separate sitemap for your images.

For more information about image sitemaps, check out this link.

9. Be wary with third-party image hosting.

Many people use third-party image hosting services such as Photobucket, Imgur, and Postimage to store and link their photos. The advantage of this method is that it saves you space and reduces the overall bandwidth that your site uses.

However, if the hosting services are overwhelmed with massive amounts of traffic or if their servers experience a problem, your images may not show up, get blocked, or even be deleted. Due to this problem, you might want to use your own server to host your images.

10. Use social media to promote your images.

Social media has a vital role in your SEO as well as your customer acquisition and retention strategy. By regularly sharing your images on your social media accounts, you extend your reach, promote your services, and tap into new markets.

Check out this article for tips on using social media to improve your reach.

Header photos, pictures that accompany articles, galleries, and product images are not just for eye candy or promotion. They are also important tools that could help in your SEO.

Here are some tips on how to write creative and engaging captions for your photos.

1. Proper spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar should be observed. Nothing is worse than a caption that is borderline unreadable.

2. Write short and concise captions. Generally, two or three sentences will suffice, with a total of around 140 characters. Only add a third sentence if more contextual information is necessary to explain the image thoroughly.

3. Adding the third sentence is a good idea if you want to direct the reader to the detail in the photo that you want them to focus on. For instance, in a real estate photo, you might write the third sentence as, “Note the Baroque-style archway in the hallway.”

4. If there’s a beautiful story behind the photo, then it is definitely fine to share it. The captions of National Geographic’s Instagram photos are perfect examples of long-form captions. Their impressive stories add value to their visuals.

5.  Make sure the information in your caption is correct and accurate. This is especially important in journalistic photos such as those in newspapers, magazines, journals, and reports. Ensure that professional titles are included, the names of the entities are properly spelled, the location is the right one, and the date is included. Double or triple-check your data to ensure that it is correct.

6. Avoid stating the obvious. If the bride and groom are smiling at each other, don’t write that they are smiling at each other. The photo already visually shows what the subject is doing. Rephrase the caption to reflect the story behind the image. Instead of saying, “The couple smiles at each other,” write, “John and Mary share a light moment during a break in their wedding ceremony rehearsal.

Have You Ever Thought To

Outsource Photo Editing?

Try it today with 5 free edits from three professional photo editors.

Try PhotoUp Learn More

7.  A quote from a famous person adds a meaningful touch to an image, especially if it is strongly related to the photo. Travel, landscape, wedding, wildlife, and portrait photos often use beautiful quotes to make the images more poignant.

8.  If you are writing for a specific audience, utilize jargon that the audience uses. Use the vocabulary, slang, nuances, and terms of the subject in your photo. For example, if your subject is a rock climber, use rock climbing jargon.

Write “John red points the tricky 5.15a Kong, finally conquering the crux of the route—an extremely steep overhang with no feet.” Your caption sounds awkward to the rock climbing community if you write, “John climbs and completes the 5.15a Kong after going up the most difficult part of the cliff.”

Using the wrong terminology or not knowing your subject’s jargon makes your caption sound amateurish.

9. Ask a question; it could be an open-ended question, a yes-or-no question, or a skill-testing question. Doing so engages the readers and encourages them to comment on your photo. The increase in engagement does wonders for your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). With good SEO, more people and potential clients will notice your website.

For example, for your latest glamour photo, you can write, “What do you think about La Ville’s new line of summer sundresses?”

It would also be a good idea to include a call to action to improve engagement. Ask people to write a comment, tag their friends, share your photo, join your contest, or share their opinion.

10. Use your business’ tagline or hashtag. This gives the photo a sense of identity and helps with branding. Additionally, using taglines and hashtags that are associated with your industry or business can help to you gain more followers, increase interaction, and also helps your images easier to find by people looking for specific images and tags. A perfect example is Nike’s photo below; it utilizes the company’s tagline “Just Do It.”

Hint: Avoid the overuse of hashtags, especially in Instagram captions. Hashtags help improve visibility, but they can be quite annoying if you put a hashtag on almost every word. Hashtags should only be used on words that are relevant. A good rule of thumb is if there’s no reason for the reader to click on the word, then do not put a hashtag.

11. For SEO purposes, insert strategic keywords in your caption. You can use Google Adwords Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, Wordtracker, and other keyword research tools to determine the best keywords. In addition, remember to put the most important words first.

12. Use captions in your blog posts, product descriptions, photo displays as well as your social media accounts.

With these techniques, your photos will have a deeper meaning or a more comprehensive story. Using beautifully written captions is sure to attract and engage your readers.