SEO Value of Images

Images are a key part of any good SEO strategy to promote a blog. Search engine algorithms use certain criteria to evaluate the worth of a blog or website, and attach differentiated weight to each factor. The page rankings of any website or blog on a search engine are determined on that basis.

Search engines have traditionally considered images as an important factor in deciding the worth of a blog or website. Images help to enhance the quality of content and deliver a superior or enriched experience to the readers. Therefore, blog posts with good quality images are likely to be ranked higher on search engines compared to blogs that are devoid of any images.

Quality of Images

Merely uploading images along with the blog post is not sufficient to achieve the best SEO results. Search engines consider the image quality and resolution, as well as the originality and authenticity of images. The most important consideration is that the image must be relevant and useful to the content. Dumping the blog post with irrelevant or disconnected images will eventually drive away readers and bring down the page rankings of the blog.

Images must not be offensive because the Internet is a public place, and certain public norms and conventions must be observed. Image quality, resolution and other physical aspects of the image are also important to determine its overall SEO value. If the images are posted in an outdated format, or are so heavy that visitors have difficulty in downloading the page, it can discourage the readers from visiting the blog.

Copyright

One of the most important things for every blogger to understand is that the images used for a blog post must be free of copyright protection. If it is important to use copyrighted images, the blogger must seek due permission from the owner of the image, or pay its cost to reproduce the image on his or her blog.

Violating image copyrights can land a blogger in potential legal trouble. At the same time, such violations can also bring down the page rankings of the blog on leading search engines, and may even lead to blacklisting of the blog (being tossed into virtual purgatory is about as bad as it gets). A number of reliable online image libraries are available today that provide free as well as paid images for bloggers. Using such authentic sources, like Wikimedia commons or iStock Photo, can keep bloggers free of the risk of copyright violation and golden in the eyes of those same search engines. Even if you have to pay for high-quality images to use in your posts, you can find discounts and coupons to help lower these costs.

It may be our game to lose but we are playing by the search engine’s rules.

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Search Engine Optimization

Introduction to SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is no doubt essential for getting free and targeted visitors to your online properties, namely blogs and websites. However it is something which can easily consume most part of your online time. In the pursuit of a high Google PageRank and high ranking in Search Engine Results Pages or SERPs, many webmasters and bloggers forget the essential objective of SEO. It is useful only when your blog or website is good enough to retain the visitors!

Just like me, most internet users (hopefully all!) have a life away from it. So, in keeping with your social, occupational and recreational lives, it becomes necessary to prioritize the activities you carry out in trying to optimize your blog or website for search engines. I use a self-prepared SEO priority list, which I have created based on the results and time requirement for each activity. While popular search engines like Google keep changing their algorithm from time to time, these factors have consistently been considered important by all SEO experts, and rightly so.

So, here goes the list:

On Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

1. Domain name and Site/Blog title

2. Meta Description and Keyword Tags

3. Keyword Density Optimization of main Site/Blog content

4. Internal Link Building

5. Profuse Image Inclusion with ALT and TITLE tags (I get 40% of my blog traffic from Google Image Search!)

6. Automated Keyword Inclusion (I use related posts, categories and tags but some people use external RSS Feeds)

7. Relevant Outbound Links

Off Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

1. Inbound Dofollow Links from Relevant high PR Pages

2. Submission to Search Engines

3. Inbound Links from Social Networking Sites

4. Submission to RSS Directories

5. Submission to Blog/Website Directories

I hope you didn’t find the list too long!

Do share your experiences and opinions regarding time management while doing SEO for your blogs and websites with us.

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): How Does It Benefit Everyone? Ways SEO optimization benefits more than just the blogger or webmaster....
2. Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Terms – Part 4 4th part in the beginners guide to SEO terms series which include SERP to White Hat SEO definitions...
3. Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Terms – Part 3 This is the third post in the series: Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Terms You might want to...

1.Media Based blogs and websites

2.Text Based blogs and websites

MEDIA BASED BLOGS AND WEBSITES :

Now, Almost all bloggers use images in their posts. That doesn’t make it a media based blog. Media based blogs are Photo-blogs, Video-blogs, Audio-blogs etc., in which the primary content is Rich-media, or blogs which need to host certain downloadable files on the same server.

Media based websites include websites reviewing movies, TV series etc. with the files on the same server, or sites listing/selling Web-Templates, Wallpapers, Screen-Savers etc.

Clearly, these blogs and websites need much more Web-Space and Bandwidth than others. The bloggers and site-owners should therefore preferably go for Unlimited Web-Hosting Plans with reliable Web Hosts, or use File-Hosting services on a different Server and link to those files.

TEXT BASED BLOGS AND WEBSITES :

These blogs and websites are typically information-based, with lots and lots of textual content and relatively lesser space taken up by images, videos and Flash files, if at all any. So, they need considerably less Web Space and Bandwidth as compared to other blogs and websites.

Even if you are using the services of a Web Hosting company for the past few months or years, you should continually compare their services with those of other Web Hosts, and switch over whenever you feel the need to. Bandwidth limitations are particularly very harsh, when you are expecting a sudden rise in traffic. Thus, always keep atleast twice the Bandwidth in provision of that you actually need. Especially if you are expecting a sharp spike due to an advertisement campaign or Social Media activities or Search Engine Optimization, switch over to a very high or unlimited Bandwidth Plan or Web Hosting company, if your present company doesn’t have that facility.

Web Space is much easier to monitor and optimize, since there cannot be such spikes as in Bandwidth requirement. If you need only a few hundred or thousand MBs of space, no need going for an Unlimited Web Hosting Plan, especially in case of Text Based Blogs.

If you need unlimited Bandwidth, and don’t get it without purchasing Unlimited Web Space, however, don’t hesitate to shell out a few extra bucks. If you are stranding 100s or 1000s of potential customers or blog-visitors due to Bandwidth limits, it would deal your reputation a severe blow. I’ve seen this happen with many Top-tier blogs and websites too!

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“How do I make the best use of SEO to get more visitors to my blog, website or sales page?”

What we all forget is that Search Engine Optimization or SEO is not a mule to carry visitors to your blog, website or sales page! SEO is a very sensitive tool which is meant to provide search engine users with relevant, up-to-date and authentic information. SEO is something we all should use to get “more targeted” visitors, and not just “more visitors”!

A targeted visitor is one who is in majority of cases likely to stick around on a website or blog simply because it contains valuable information about the topic(s) he/she was looking for. Targeted visitors are most likely to be interested in subscribing to your blogs, buying stuff off your websites and following your advertisers’ links! Thus, Search Engine Optimization or SEO when done correctly will be beneficial to the blog/website owners as well as the search engine users.

Search Engine Optimization

By personal experience, I have realized several times that websites and blogs which provide very high quality content sometimes ignore SEO practices, because of which they become more and more difficult to find when you are looking for some information urgently. Also, in several cases, websites and blogs with little or no amount of useful information rank pretty high on search engines by exploiting SEO techniques like link building and inflating the keyword density of their web pages.

Lack of awareness about the importance and benefits of Search Engine Optimization along with exploitation of loopholes present in the algorithms of search engines

1. Leads to low quality search results being delivered to the users, and
2. Lowers the traffic and income of websites and blogs.

The need of the hour is for all webmasters and bloggers to realize that SEO is extremely necessary and beneficial for everyone, and that Search Engines will no longer remain useful when we don’t use SEO responsibly. So, let us all take a vow to abide by ethical SEO practices and promise to provide high quality, unique and search engine optimized content to our readers and spread the same message to others!

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Click here to view the embedded video.

The last week or so I have been on a mission to research and get bloggers to become aware of and discuss the concept of bloggers forming a’ tribe ‘ through collaborating with other to boost their blog potential. Here are the tasks I suggested each blogger in the tribe commit to:

• They comment on all bloggers involved in the tribes’ posts at least one post per day.
• We ReTweet each others posts and engage each other on Twitter.
• We share each others posts on our social media platforms (all of ‘em). Minimum the following: LinkedIn (if you have one), Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon.
• We commit to at least one guest post for each of the other nine blogs in the group per month (That’s 2 guest posts average/week) and linking to the post in twitter and blogs (Both guest blogger and host).
• We will review the other nine individuals’ blogs once in the next three months.
• We will do an interview with the other nine bloggers in the next three months.
• We will review each others blogs on Alexa.

It’s pretty simple to do these on a daily basis and they will excel all blogs involved exponentially. The principle of synergy applies here.

Synergy is when the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Normally when 10 and 10 is added, it equals 20! Synergy, on the other hand, is where the two efforts are multiplied. So it becomes 100.

See how ones effort if multiplied through the synergy that collaboration offers you? Now, when I promoted the post and the concept to blogger friends within my network (as well as bloggers unknown to me at the time), the reactions were mixed.

I don’t have much time to get involved as I’m overwhelmed with my blogging tasks as it is.

This is cheating the system.

I’m excited, where do I sign up.

Perhaps 10 is a little too much. Having 5 people may be a better bet.

This was very interesting to me as I have seen many such networks do this successfully, but I have to see success in my own blog and network before having the ‘practical experience‘ of it working. However it may be, I would LOVE for YOU to give us your view.

In the comment section below, tell us

• Do you think a blog community adapting a ‘tribe’ mentality through collaborating is viable?
• Can such a plan be successful?
• How will it affect the growth of the individual blogs involved?

You are welcome to read the original post with all the details. Don’t forget to comment below.

Image courtesy of jscreationzs

Related articles

• The Collaboration Debate (growmap.com)

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