Google has an "Image Search", and when people look for pictures there, they will see your photos. Let's say your website is about roses. If a person searches for a picture of a rose on Google image search will get a whole page of pictures of roses.
If the person clicks on a photo that they like, they will be sent to a page with a small version of your image along with a snapshot of your web page. A lot of people will click through to your web page.
If you use a really cute or unusual picture, you can really get a lot of traffic from it. I discovered this by accident, but I have been using it deliberately ever since.
Some ideas for using image search:
1) Make sure Google knows what the photo is about.
- Use your keywords in the file name. Don't use some random letters or numbers. Use some words that are related to your post.
- Use keywords in the alt tag of the photo. Just use a few words. Don't make it excessively long.
- Words found near the photo influence the meaning also. Google uses this to figure out what the photo is of. So watch what text you have near your images.
- Adding a caption to the image will give Google additional text to figure out the photo's subject.
- For a blind person, the alt tag text is what they get instead of the photo. And for people who have images turned off, this alternate text is what that they will see instead of the image.
2) How to keep your pages loading fast while using images.
- Be sure to specify the height and width of the photo. This way the page load is not slowed down while you are waiting for the picture to load.
If the browser knows the size of your photo, it can leave room for it and continue loading the rest of your page. Otherwise, it has to wait until the photo loads before it knows how much room to leave, which slows down the loading of the rest of your page.
- Check the size of your photo file. It should be under 20-30k. This is especially important if you use a lot of images on one page. If your file sizes are too large, it can really slow down your page load.
If your image files are too large, use and image editor to save them at a lesser quality. A lower quality image will still look good on a web page.
3) Choose your photos wisely.
- Use photos that people will be attracted to and will click on. - Use keywords that are apt to be searched.
If you follow these tips, your pictures will have a much better chance of being found first in Google's image search. If you add an image to every post you make, this greatly improves your chances of getting lots of traffic to your website or blog.
