Get Traffic To Your Eshop From Image Search | 6 tips

Image search is very important if you want to drive traffic to your eCommerce store or your blog. It's an amazing traffic source that most website owners don't attach importance to.

Don't be intimidated though, it's an easy process to optimize your product images to give a boost on your SEO efforts.

Even if voice search is on the rise for at least the past 2 years, image search will always matter for eCommerce products.

In simple words, even if you just have a blog I 'm sure it has images. Why wouldn’t you optimize them and get the most out of them?

Image optimization serves you in several ways but two of them are the most important. Lower page load times and making easier for prospects to find you and your business.

Before getting deeper, you should know it is best to have high-quality pictures especially if you showcase specific products. If you don't know how to optimize product photos you might want to outsource the process to someone who can.

So, let's start in simple steps to see how you can optimize your image search.

1. Just name your images

If your eCommerce site or blog is quite old, then I suppose you have lots of images inside. It totally worths to dedicate some time and name them all -if possible.

If you haven't named your images when uploaded them, then they possibly have the default name that looks something like IMG_8664764.

If your users don't know what your picture is about then it definitely is 10 times harder for Google to know what your picture is about.

Google requires some context from you so that its crawlers can recognize the image's subject matter. Once this happens, it can rank the image properly and match it up with users who are searching for your information.

Summarizing, before you upload any images, rename them first according to what they depict.

All your file names should be:

1. short

2. to-the-point

3. precise

4. and should include a keyword for proper SEO.

2. Optimize the alt tags

Just as crucial as naming your photographs, you should likewise work on optimizing your alt tags with relevant, SEO-friendly text.

An alt tag represents the contents of each of your images. If an image can’t load for any reason, users will alternately see an image box containing the alt tag. The alt tag helps users identify the content of your image in case it doesn't load and Google knows what your image is about. Use SEO keywords as it matters for best SEO practices.

It's better if you are quite specific about what your image represents. For instance "rear view of a camera".

3. Add captions

People scan articles. Sometimes, they read the captions underneath an image more than they read the post itself. So, captions that are attached to an eye-catching image can increase users span. You have bigger chances for your user to reach the CTA.

For SEO purposes, captions are significant because:

-they give Google more context about your image

-they’re an excellent way to put more keywords into your post.

There’s no necessity to add captions to every image. If a page has a lot of images, too many captions might irritate the user.

4. Use original images

For blogs, the purpose should be to use visually appealing images. Great images get noticed. If an eye-catching image follows a post on social media, it’s got ten times better odds of being read. This could boost its shares and its possibilities of going viral. Who doesn't want a viral post that brings huge traffic?

Free stock images might be free but that's not the case here. You have to showcase your products in a unique way.

Stock images might look monotonous and unoriginal. This can harm your overall appeal.

To diminish the potential trouble of using a copyright image by mistake, think websites like Shutterstock. They let you pay a set fee for a certain number of quality photographs.

But, to stand out from the crowd on Image Search and drive better quality traffic to your blog, you need to start using original images. They don’t have to cost a fortune. If you can photograph your products outsource them for professional product photo optimization.

5. Scale the images

The scale is a bit of an issue among fresh marketers who might not know how page speed harms SEO. If your pages take too long to load, it can severely affect your rankings. And one of the biggest reasons for a lazy loading page is huge images.

If you can get your pages to load faster, it makes it a lot easier for Google to visit and index them. Then, it can rank it better but what’s the best image size for a blog?

The most essential thing you need to take into thought is how big your blog content area is. If it’s 690 pixels in width, you don’t want to size an image any bigger than that. If you do, it will be narrowed. So not only will it slow down your loading time, but it will also look very bad.

It’s also a good idea to save all JPEGs at no more than 85% quality range. Any higher means you risk slowing down your page speed.

For decent compression, use a tool, such as TinyPNG or ShortPixel.

6. Create image sitemap

Finally, this one sounds a little bit more technical than it really is. An image sitemap is necessary if you want to increase your chances of being discovered in Google’s Image Search as Google’s crawlers might in some cases miss your images the first time around. If so, a sitemap can guarantee they get seen. This is particularly true of images that are obtained through JavaScript forms.

There are various free Sitemap Generator tools you can use on the Internet to submit your images to. If you’re using WordPress, you can use their Google XML Sitemap for Images plugin or even the Yoast plugin.

Make your blog picture perfect

Getting traffic to your blog through image search is honestly frank and, unlike your other SEO efforts, doesn’t require extra skills. Use these tips and remember to optimize your images each time you add them. It's a time saver!

Remember that perfect optimized product photos bring perfect conversions.