How To Use Images, Graphics And Thumbnails To Promote Your Site
By: Titus Hoskins | Posted: 21st October 2006
Images, graphics and thumbnails play an important role in the
overall look and feel of your website. They can greatly improve
the usefulness of your site; making it more user-friendly and
easier to navigate. More importantly, the visual images on
your site can be optimized to improve your search engine rankings.
Despite their importance, many webmasters ignore images or graphics
when it comes to optimizing their web pages. Don't make the same
mistake.
There are some simple rules to follow when using SEO with
your onsite graphics. Here are a few tips:
First, you must know exactly what an 'Alt Image Tag' is in order
to optimize for the search engines. You must also realize
search engine robots can't see your images, they can only read text
- the text in your Alt Image Tags. So you have to construct your
Alt Image Tags with this factor in mind and feed these robots
with your popular keywords. Search engine robots usually spider
popular sites every day or so.
What is an Alt Image Tag?
Every image, graphic or thumbnail on your site will
have html code similar to this:
<[sample code] img src="http://www.YourDomain.com/images/logo.jpg"
Alt="Your Keyword Image" width="600" height="200" [sample code]>
Your Alt Image Tag will be:
alt="Your Keyword Image"
Always include an Alt Image Tag description for all your images,
graphics and thumbnails. This includes all headers, background
images and even thumbnails of other sites, if you use them.
Keep your descriptions of the images short and related to the
image itself. It would be a good idea to end each description
with the word photo, image or graphic.
Many marketers like to include their main keyword or keyword
phrase they are targeting in the Alt Image Tag. They also place
this keyword phrase in the text on their page, in the title tag,
meta description and many alert marketers also place their keyword
phrase in the URL of that page. You should also include your
keyword phrase in the last 25 words on the same page.
Feed the spiders but be careful!
DON'T repeat the same keyword or keyword phrase numerous
time on your page in the image tags - this may be seen as
keyword spamming by the robots.
Using plurals and variations of your keyword is fine,
such as: faxing service, fax services, efax services.
Many marketers also use misspelled keywords in the
Alt Image Tag as it can only be seen when the
image is scrolled over. Spiders can't spell but they
will index these misspelled keywords and bring in
extra traffic!
Graphics
The ordinary website will have more than just photos or images
on a webpage. You will have headers, backgrounds, liners, etc.
all of these should also have Alt Image Tags. Although in
this age of the broadband Internet, your page loading time
is not a major factor as it once was, but you should still
reduce all your images so that they will download quickly.
Many professional web designers place unneeded or useless
keywords (ones that get no searches) in the graphics on
their site. For example, instead of placing 'Welcome to
our site' in a headline - place it in a graphic at the
top of your page. This will free up your headline for
your main keywords.
Placing these useless words in a graphic where the robots
can't read them - frees up your Alt Tags for keywords that
you're promoting. Place your main keywords in the headline for
better SEO. Keep feeding those spiders!
But always keep in mind, you are creating your content or web
pages for real live human beings so you should check to see what
your site's graphics look like in the different browsers.
Try here: www.anybrowser.com
Since we have an ever increasing numbers of different screen
or display sizes, always check to see how your graphics
look on a different size display. You might be horrified
to find your perfectly designed page on a 15" PC is totally
distorted on a 17" widescreen laptop.
Needless to say, for site consistency, keep all your
background images and logos the same throughout your
site. Same goes for your fonts and text size, it will keep
your site's visitors more focused and on track.
Thumbnails
Many online sites use thumbnails to raise the professional
quality of their sites. It makes for a higher standard of
design, not to mention, it will increase the usability
of your site. It will also increase your click thru rates.
Thumbnails are screen capture shots of a website. They give
the surfer some idea of what a site looks like before they
visit that site. In a billion site Internet, this can be
very important for the promotion of your site.
Using thumbnails will increase the visibility of your
site and make it stand out from the crowd. Many professional
sites like AOL, Network Solutions, and ALexa use thumbnails.
Any site can use thumbnails, check the resource box at the end
of this article for further directions on how to place thumbnails
on your own site or sites.
Conclusion
Using images, graphics and thumbnails to promote your site
can be easily done if you use the advice given above. Always
remember to use Alt Image Tags to position your selected
keywords or keywords in the search engines. Consistently
do this over a long period of time and you will see
your site rise in the rankings. Keep those spiders well
fed and happy!
More importantly, using these visual aids will also improve
the friendliness and usability of your site. It will
help raise the professional look and feel of your site
so that other webmasters and sites will want to link to
your site; further increasing your rankings and the
popularity of your site.
Don't underestimate the power of a simple image - it can
do wonders for your site.
...
The author is a former teacher who now works full-time online
operating numerous websites, including two sites on Internet
marketing. For the latest web marketing tools try:
Internet Marketing Tools
To place thumbnails or thumbshots on your own site
try this free service. Go here:Free Thumbnails
Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins. This article may be
freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
This article is free for republishing
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Tags: search engines, title tag, phrase, search engine rankings, web pages, meta description, spiders, marketers, mistake, tag description, thumbnail, image tags, search engine robots, seo, keywords search, visual images, background images, photo image