How to SEO your Graphic-Heavy Website

One of the biggest hindrances of good SEO on websites is the lack of rich text.  It's no secret that Google and other search engines like to read; let's face it, they're nerds.  Content is king when it comes to SEO, however, using more images and Flash animation can make your website more visually appealing to visitors.  Unfortunately, search engines could care less about how cool your site looks.  Google's spiders can't see your images.  So how do you split the difference between images vs. text on your website and still maximize your SEO efforts?

Outside of the obvious "ALT Tags" and "Image Descriptions," 360 PSG has a few tips on how you can optimize your image-heavy web pages to make them more search friendly.

Page Titles:

Every one of your pages, whether it's a page full of content or just a photo gallery, should have unique Page Titles that incorporate keywords relevant to the content on your page.  Page Titles display at the very top of your browser window and are visible to search engine spiders.

Filenames:

Along with Page Titles, each page on your website should have a unique filename.  The filename, like the Page Title, should use keywords relevant to the page content.  And remember to separate multiple words with a hyphen (some search engines will parse the words differently when they see a hyphen as opposed to an underscore; some read phrases separated by underscores all as one word). 

Content:

The goal with content is to tell search engines exactly what your page is about.  Using keywords in your page content as well as embedding them in the back end of your site will help search engines determine which pages are most useful for visitors searching for those keywords or keyphrases.

Page Headings:

Every Fission Web System site has at least two heading styles defined.  Heading 1 styles are big, bold text that stand out to search engines.  Think of every one of your web pages as a news article.  Your Heading 1 is the headline of your page giving readers, and search engines, keyword-rich text that introduces the content that follows.

Captions:

Are your images organized on a gallery page?  With the Fission Image Gallery, you can add captions to your images and your image gallery collections.  Place relevant text near the image on your page to give search engines a clue to what the image content is.

ALT Text:

In short, ALT text (alternative text) describes images to search engines.

You may have noticed this text before, perhaps in an email.  Before you click that "Show Images Below" link, there is text in the place of that image.  That's your ALT text.

ALT tags do increase your website's usability by identifying images to search engines.  Since this is how search engines view your images, it's especially important to use relevant keywords in your ALT text.

Be specific with your ALT text.  Express the action of your image rather than describing that it's an image.  E.g., you have a button on your page that sends users to your contact page.  Rather than making the ALT text "button" make it "Contact Us."

Title Tags:

Title tags (or Title text), like ALT text, provide additional information about an image.  Title text is mainly used for visitors.  When you hover over an image, the Title text will appear.  This doesn't mean that you should stuff keywords into your Title text.  Simply describe the image using a single keyword or keyphrase and move on.

Filenames:

When uploading images to your Fission image manager, you need to give your photos filenames.  It's important that you use relevant keywords in your filenames and separate words with hyphens to ensure that search engines parse your keywords properly.

Modules:

One of the great benefits of using the Fission Web System is having the ability to add modules, which are dynamic blocks of content that can be moved around your site and be hidden or shown on specific pages.  You can add client testimonials or news article links that incorporate keywords relevant to a page's content as a way of adding more text to an image-heavy page.

Use your menu for SEO:

Don't neglect your menu.  Sometimes your menu will be one of the first things that Google's spiders will crawl and see.  Use keywords in your menu items especially if you have very little text on your pages.

Stay one step ahead of your competition:

How many of your competitors are taking the necessary steps to optimize their images?  If you use these methods, your image-heavy web pages should show up better in search results and hopefully generate more traffic to your site.  But like all things SEO, there is no guarantee that you're going to show up in the #1 spot on Google.  Just keep optimizing and refreshing your content to stay on top of the SEO game.

For more information on 360 PSG's new Fission SEO packages, please contact us here.