How Visual Content Can Boost Your SEO

As its name indicates, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a way to optimize your content for it to land on the first and exclusive section of search engine result pages (SERPs). You can also say that SEO is an organic marketing effort.

SEO strategy is widely known for its ability to revamp our website performance and traffic. While many marketers focus on enhancing their textual content by incorporating targeted keywords, they often overlook the visual part of their content.

Interestingly, a search engine like Google loves visual content as much as it loves our blog paragraphs. It’s because humans, our audience, would also love to see some images and videos. You will see a dedicated space for image or video results when you search on Google.

Displaying a long block of plain text on your blog is one way to lose your readers. In this case, visual content would be your knight in shining armor as it helps retain your audience’s attention and keep them interested.

Now, new questions arise: How can visual content boost my website performance? Is it even possible? SEO is all about keywords, isn’t it? 

Well, you’re lucky to have come across this article. We’ve wrapped up comprehensive and actionable insights about visual content and SEO to answer all the questions and doubts you’ve had in mind. Let’s jump right into it!

Visual Content Improves Audience Engagement

Let’s compare two articles displaying the same piece of information. The main difference is that the first article provides visual media to support its written argument. Meanwhile, the second one only shows plain text, not even a single image.

Would you rather read the second article or the first one? While the answer might depend on individual preference, the first article with visual media seems more appealing. No, I’m not making a wild guess or assuming things. In fact, posts with visual content like images lead to 650% better engagement than text-only posts.

Visual Content Stores Value

If you noticed in our previous comparison, the visual media in the first article is not some random images or videos but ones that can support the written argument. Now, it is essential to note that visual content in SEO should be relevant. 

Most of all, your visual content will go hand-in-hand with high-quality content. By adding relevant images or voice videos in your posts, the audience will find it helpful and informative. A proper visual can supplement your written content, providing the most value to your readers.

In terms of technical SEO practices, you can use descriptive alt tags and captions for images or videos to provide context to search engines. By doing so, you’d help search engines to index and rank your content accurately.

Visual Content Brings Great Experience

User experience (UX) is another aspect you should consider; adding visual content is a way to improve it. Visuals help break up your long content to be more readable and digestible. Many factors influence your audience experience. It can be the website loading times, mobile-friendliness, and easy navigation. 

A well-designed website with compelling visuals will likely keep visitors engaged and satisfied. But remember to optimize all of your visual elements. Keep it in small bytes so it won’t take too long to load. Place them beautifully on your website for easy navigation. Last but not least, ensure it displays perfectly on mobile devices.

Visual Content Is Shareable

Who doesn’t love sharing visual content on social media? Whether they’re relatable videos, motion graphics, or breathtaking photographs. When your audience shares your visual content across their social networks, it can generate more backlinks to your website. 

In return, these backlinks help strengthen your website’s authority and trustworthiness to search engines. The more backlinks you accumulate from reputable sources, the more boost you get for your SEO efforts.

Visual Content Expands Opportunities

For those who think SEO is all about keywords, this point would be your favorite. Here’s the answer if you wonder where to put your keywords on visual content. Interestingly, visual content can provide additional opportunities for keyword optimization. But how?

You can include these relevant keywords in your visual content, from image alt text and captions to video descriptions. You can also rename your files with some descriptive keywords before uploading them to your web.

So, instead of instead of naming an image “IMG1234.jpg,” use a specific and keyword-rich name like “best-red-running-shoes.jpg.” This helps give a context understanding to search engines about your visual content. As a result, your visual media will have a higher chance of getting featured on search results.

Visual Content Reduces Bounce Rate

What’s a bounce rate? It’s a term when audiences come to your website only to leave immediately. They don’t even bother scrolling down or looking around at your content. If that’s the case, then you probably have a high bounce rate. 

According to search engine algorithms, the higher the bounce rate, the worse your web reputation will be. It indicates that your content was neither relevant nor engaging. But don’t worry. As discussed, visual content offers many benefits for our SEO efforts. That includes reducing a high bounce rate or even bringing it down to complete zero.

Adding visual content to your website would help provide your audience with an enticing and immersive experience. For instance, a captivating explainer video about your company profile at the top of a page can delight readers and encourage them to explore your site further. 

Takeaway

From helping you engage your audience better to reducing bounce rates, these are how visual content can boost your SEO efforts. So, are you ready to spice up your posts with some SEO-friendly visuals? 

While doing so, remember to keep your visual content relevant and informative. Optimize the size of your images or videos to avoid heavy loading. Most importantly, incorporate a specific and targeted keyword into your visual media. Put your keyword on the alt title or caption so search engines can recognize your visual content.