Graphics and Images

The primary purpose of graphics and images is to beautify a website. Restful colours, graceful lines, an artful blend of images and animation all liven up a website and help set the tone for enjoyable browsing. But more than just being decorative, graphics do have a role to play in search engine page ranking.

When using graphics and images within your web design there are a few things to take into account. The first thought to keep in mind at all times, is that search engines need text to discern the meaning of your webpage. All other content is meaningless except text.

With this in mind, think about all the places you use images on your web page - header graphics, dividers and slices, list item bullets - and we've all seen websites that use images instead of text for buttons, rollover buttons and calls to action. All these elements of your web design must always include Alt Image Tag descriptions to clearly identify the images. Although the images themselves cannot be recognized by search engines for ranking purposes, their descriptions, if properly worded or phrased to match the relevant keywords of the website, may also be considered by spiders. However, care must be exercised so that keywords in Alt Image Tag
s are not overused. For instance, a keyword in the singular form may be slightly altered to become plural or a descriptive word may be added to the keyword to create a new variant. Remember that spiders will feed on anything no matter how small as long as it is edible to them.

Essentially, all your graphics and images within a webpage should have the alt tag correctly entered. Obviously you need to use words within the tag that reflect the content of the image, or what the image represents on your webpage - ie, the keyword or keyphrase for that particular page is ideal. This also has a minor kick-back in terms of SEO. It's not going to get you the number 1 spot on Google for anything - but if the search engines see you're fixing the Alt attribute of your images to tie in with the focus of your web page, then they will feel a little more assured that all the elements on your page are consistent in their topic.

You only need 5 or 6 words normally to describe the image. It should be noted that this is not only a search engine optimisation consideration, but also helps visitors to your site who have visual impairments. The alt tag can be read by visitors who use screen readers so should make sense when read aloud.

You can't afford to ignore what a simple image can do for your website. If properly used, it can do wonders for your page ranking.