Picture Perfect

Pictures and graphics are really cool, nice to look at, and entertaining. They can send an important message - especially in the world of highways and billboards. But when it comes to SEO and making the most of your website and valuable content, pictures don’t say much at all to the search engines. As a matter of fact, graphics and search engines don’t even speak to each other.

So, what does that mean to you?

It means that you should make sure you have plenty of text on the pages of your website and don’t fill them up with images and pictures that are overlooked and ignored by search engine spiders and bots. Search engines only focus on text to rank your pages. They want to find rich data and content that can be indexed and evaluated easily and quickly.

We’ve all seen beautiful web pages with a magnificent picture of a sunset promoting an exotic island vacation, or snow-laden mountains boasting a winter paradise. But when those pictures comprise the majority of the web page with very little description or content, the search engines won’t rank them very highly. They may not even be able to find them at all.

A judicious use of Flash and images is a good idea when it comes to SEO. Using too much will make your website difficult for search engines to find and it won’t rank well among your competitors. This not only applies to your homepage, or main page, but all pages throughout the site. Consistency is important and pages that are content-rich will make a significant difference in how well you are ranked. Use graphics to complement your content, but not over-power it.

An organized website that uses graphics, pictures, and other design elements carefully can be an attractor of search engines and visitors. Web pages that are logically organized will be more easily found. Make sure your sitemap is intuitive and easy to navigate. Following these simple guidelines can help with your SEO.