Optimise images for better search engine rankings

It's important to name and describe images on your website as accurately as possible. This will help Google and other search engines understand the images and use them in search rankings. As a result, users searching for a specific subject will find your website more easily. Here's what you should do.

• Make sure that your image file names describe the image. For example, instead of an image called "DSC12345.jpg", rename it to "subject-of-image.jpg", and use that on your site. This helps Google understand the image better.
• Use a concise and accurate image alt attribute. The alt attribute (also known as "alt tag") is alternative text for the image if it is not available. It can be a description of the image and/or a description of the function of the image. You can add the alt attribute after uploading images into systems like WordPress. Then, when you use the image in your posts or pages, the alt attribute is in the page code for Google to read and index.

You shouldn't overdo this by adding a multitude of search engine terms into the image file names or alt attributes. That's just spamming the search engines and Google will penalise you for doing this. Just be honest and accurate.

Of course, your images will be relevant to the text content on your site, and this will contain similar words and phrases to your image file names and alt attributes. So, anything you do with images will reinforce the information on your site.

Conclusion

The lesson here is to be accurate, honest and thorough with your website images. This will help with your search engine rankings.

It is also very important to add alt attributes for accessibility reasons. For example, visually impaired users who are using screen reader software will get the alt attribute read out to them. Now, that's helpful!