SEO and visual content: How to drive traffic to your site using photos and videos

Regarding search engine optimization (SEO), most people would think in terms of keyterm optimization in text content. But your SEO efforts can be taken a step further through other means. One way to do so is by incorporating visual content to your website.

An often overlooked method, optimizing images and videos for search engines is an effective way to drive traffic to a site. In its official blog, SEOP asserts that images have become the media of choice for many, as shown by the popularity of photo-sharing sites like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Image Source: whitehouse.gov

Image optimization
To make your photos rank high on an image search engine results page, remember that keyword relevance is important to photos as with optimized text. Choose photos that are relevant to the text content of your webpage, and place keywords in the file name and the alt text. Adding captions to the images is also recommended.

Image Source: moreincomezone.com

Video optimization
A Forrester Research study shows that videos are 53 times more likely to generate a first-page ranking than conventional SEO methods. But when it comes to using online video content to pull website traffic, many are still confused as to how it is done effectively. To make your videos work for both viewers and search engine crawlers, there are two things to remember: (1) keyword implementation and (2) linking strategy.

Keep in mind the keywords you’ll be targeting. Use these keywords strategically in the video’s filename, the title tags and metadata, and the URL of the page where your video will appear.

Image Source: optiinfo.files.wordpress.com

To get more people to find you online and to motivate them to backlink, you must formulate a good linking strategy. Whether you’re uploading the video on your site or on Youtube or Vimeo, choose a hosting strategy that aligns with your goals. SEOP suggests linking up the new to other related videos in your media archives, and sharing the video update through your social media profiles for the chance to stream it to a wider range of viewers.

Implementing an SEO campaign can be a murky process for many website owners. SEOP.com shares a lot of great tips on search engine optimization.

Tags: SEO, search engine optimization, images, videos, linking, visual content, website traffic