Using Images to Increase Traffic

While many focus on the traditional ways to increase their web site’s traffic, quite a few tend to forget some of the more simple techniques you can implement to produce some incredible results. There really are no secrets to increasing traffic, simply just knowing what to do and how to do it will usually get the job done.

Did you know that simple images on your site can drive traffic to your website for free? Best yet, if used correctly, the traffic that comes to your site will be targeted traffic, the best traffic you can receive. I’ll quickly share a few tips on how to experience an increase in traffic. These are all extremely quick and easy to do, and best of all it doesn’t cost you a single penny.

Naming Your Images

Focus on the titles that you assign to each image throughout all of the content on your website. Naming your images so that they are SEO friendly is an important step during this whole process. Let’s say you have a website that’s focused on recipes, better yet, leftover turkey recipes. When listing your recipes, you may choose to display a photograph of the finished recipe, such as a photo of a turkey pot pie. Instead of displaying your image with an obscure title such as “tpp01.jpg”, name your image “turkey-pot-pie-recipe.jpg”. Using hyphens to separate each word in the title of your image is a better option than an underscore.

Use Alt Tags

Always remember to add alt tags to your images when you are including them on your website. Your alt tags should be relevant to the image that you are posting. So let’s go back to the turkey pot pie example. If you wish to display an image of a turkey pot pie created from a recipe, label your image with an alt tag such as “Turkey Pot Pie Recipe”. The alt tags show up on search engine result pages rather than the titles of the image.

Choose Your Images Wisely

If you haven’t experimented around with image searches such as Google Image Search, now is the time to do so. Spend some time searching through the site before adding a specific image. I’m going to dive back into the whole turkey pot pie example once again. Let’s say you use Google Image Search to search using the phrase turkey pot pie. Click on the image beneath to get a better look at what’s being shown. You’ll see that searching for this phrase will return 808,000 results.

Turkey Pot Pie Image Search

Now let’s try something a little bit more specific. Try a Google Image Search using the phrase double crusted turkey pot pie. Click on the image below to see that this search will return 85,100 results. This opens up a window of opportunity for you. If you choose to be a bit more specific and include an image on your site of a double crusted turkey pot pie rather than just a turkey pot pie, you’ll have less competition when it comes to having your images indexed and displayed on Google.

Double Crusted Turkey Pot Pie Image Search

Relevant Text With Images

Remember to include relevant text and keywords near the images you are posting. This can help the search engines index your site and rank your images. There are all sorts of ways you can include images within the content of your website, however you’ll have to experiment with what works best so that you can achieve the best results.

Making Your Images Unique

Nothing is better than including your own unique images within the content of your website. But of course there are times when you’ll include some images or photos that are available for free across the internet. When you use free images, be sure and resize them and make them unique to your content. Having a new and fresh resized version of the image can help separate the image from all the rest across the web.

I’m certain that if you implement these tips that you’ll find an increase of traffic to your site. Always remember to monitor your site’s stats to see what is being found and what isn’t. This will give you the ability to make necessary changes when it comes time.

Leave a Reply