How I Use Images to Climb The Walls of Google’s SERP
Introducing my latest creator think tank findings on optimizing content for Google’s visual recognition algorithm
As someone who has been publishing blogs and webzines for over a decade, I know the challenges content creators face due to Google’s algorithm.
On September 12, the company began rolling out its latest core algorithm update. This systematic reshuffling ensures a high volatility rate on SERPs (search engine results pages) throughout Google’s playing field, making it almost impossible to game the system.
Hence, Google’s AI heuristic may seem daunting for many of us, and its constant updates make it mindboggling for creators.
After the November 2021 Core Update, I was invited to participate in a Portuguese content creators guild think-tank and serve as a consultant due to my years of experience managing highly successful blogs and webzines.
This article summarizes the ideas I have recently conveyed at that forum, namely my pitch entitled: “How to harness the power of Google Images to climb the walls of Google’s SERPs.”
Despite its state-of-the-art heuristic, ranking #1 on Google Images isn’t about random luck; there’s still a great deal of science behind it, or else I wouldn’t be able to rank my articles on top consistently, as you can see here.
Is a picture still worth 1000 words?
With the rise of social sharing, and users’ increased reliance on mobile devices, the way potential customers interact with content is rapidly shifting–and to adapt, you need to consider how images can be used in conjunction with your SEO strategies.
Google doesn’t just use its Search Engine Ranking algorithms to drive advertising revenue; it also uses images to find higher-quality websites as part of its strategy.
So how can you use Google Images to drive traffic to your content?
Understanding the potential of Google’s image search is essential for a successful SEO strategy. Images are among the most searched-for terms on Google. If you can’t give your readers exactly what they want with your content, your SEO will suffer.
- Search engine bots cannot “see” what is on your website, so they use other factors to determine the content and relevance of your page.
- Ensure you have accurate and up-to-date information about your products or services to rank your images for search.
- Images are used as social proof by Google and other search engine bots.
Hence, if you have a product or service to sell and your audience is on the Internet, then you need to understand the importance of images in SEO.
Why are images an asset for SEO
Google Images is a service that searches for images of various types or themes to make search results more interesting.
Visual elements can be used to make page titles, add stunning effects to links, and sell additional products or services.
Ultimately they can make a page more engaging, which is why they are often used as a lead generation tool.
Thus, images are one of the most powerful tools in SEO. They can help improve user experiences, increase visibility on SERPs and improve content ranking.
Now let’s take a closer look at these three ways you can use images to outrank your competition:
1. Improve user experience
Images are an integral part of any website because they allow people to understand better what they’re looking at.
At the same time, they make your website look more appealing, which is especially important for e-commerce sites that depend on conversions or if you’re trying to sell your digital creations.
And while websites have come a long way regarding their ability to display images correctly, there are still many out there where this is still an issue.
Imagine if every time you visited a website, every single link led to an empty page with just text on it? That would be highly frustrating.
2. Increase visibility on SERPs
When someone searches Google for something like “how do I grow tomatoes?” they’ll likely see several results that show up on SERPs.
Search engines consider images part of the page content, so including them in your content increases its relevance for search terms related to them.
For instance, if you have an image of a product or service you offer, the search engine may choose that image as part of its SERP entry for those topics, increasing the chances of visitors clicking through to your site when they search for them.
3. Make your content rank higher on SERPs
There are SEO strategies out there that will help you harness the power of images to climb the ranks in image search and improve your chance of being found in Google Image Search.
The right image can improve conversion rates. However, they can also hurt your rankings if you don’t know how to use images effectively in SEO.
These are my tips for an SEO-boosting use of Google images in your content so that it will rank better on SERPs:
- Create image-rich posts on your website or blog;
- Use relevant images when possible (but not necessary) to help illustrate specific points in your content;
- Use the exact keywords in the title of your post as you did in your ALT tag and description;
- Add your keyword to the file name of each image and use the same file name for all images in that post.
Image-related aspects of Google’s algorithm
As I mentioned earlier, the way how Google’s AI handles images is one of the Internet’s most well-kept secrets.
Over the years, I have learned a few things about the content standards that the algorithm won’t miss and that it tends to favor in most cases.
In short, Google’s algorithm can now process images just as it does with text. The major difference between how Google handles text and images is that text-based search results are ranked based on the relevance of the content and the user’s query. Images have their own set of ranking factors.
Hence, you should also be aware that Google uses image recognition technology to determine how closely a certain image matches the query. This means that if you’re using an image with your content, it needs to be relevant to what you’re talking about.
Google’s all-powerful ‘knowledge graph’
The visual recognition tool is an extension of Google’s knowledge graph. And if you’re not already, get familiar with it because it will shape your internet journey from here on out.
With that said, the future of image search is entirely unclear, but I know that for web designers who wield images as their driving force, this is no time to sit idle.
Ranking factors for SEO with Google images
Whether you are an SEO specialist, a content creator, or a blogger — utilizing inline images can be an effective tool to get more organic traffic to your website and blog.
However, incorporating images isn’t as simple as just adding an image here and there to your posts. It’s about understanding how images are displayed on Google search, how users interact with them, and whether images are visible on the screen.
To this end, it would help if you kept in mind the following aspects:
- The relevance of the image to the query;
- The image’s popularity on the web;
- How well the image matches up with what Google believes the user wants;
- The number of people who click through to your website from the image;
- The number of backlinks pointing to your website from other sites with similar content images.
SEO Mistakes to avoid with Google images
- Duplicate content: Google is smart enough to know when you’re trying to game the system, so don’t try to use photos with identical content as ranking factors. Instead, focus on using unique yet relevant images in your posts.
- Irrelevant images: Avoid using an image that doesn’t have anything to do with what you wrote about in your post (e.g., if you wrote about how to bake homemade cookies and then used an unrelated photo of a muffin).
Concluding remarks
In this post, I delved into standard SEO practices for why you should use images and how to optimize for image search. I also discussed some recent trends in behavior and shared common mistakes made by content creators.
Bearing in mind that Google’s latest core algorithm update will lead to a drastic change in the behavior of web surfers when it comes to images, it’s time to shift our SEO strategies to increase our visibility in Google Images search results.
By ensuring that all of our important content has been optimized for inclusion in the Image Search, we can join the ranks of other successful content creators already integrating Google Images into their search marketing strategies.
Ultimately, the strategies outlined will help you to create relevant and visually appealing content. Implementing them can help you to utilize the power of Google images as a lever to boost your site’s visibility in search engines.
P.S. Let me know how the latest changes to Google’s algorithm are working for you, as this will help us better understand its impact and volatility.
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