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Nightmare! You have just learned that you’re doing your blog post images all wrong!
You’re not getting any SEO goodness from your images, and missing out on potential traffic.
Bummer!
If you just dropped into this ongoing series of articles on SEO and WordPress images, check out both “Advanced SEO IMG Element Handling For WordPress (Part I)” and “Advanced SEO IMG Element Handling For WordPress (Part II).” These articles give the knowledge for why you need to deal with image SEO on your WordPress blog, and a pretty good peek “under the carpet” for what it all means.
But if you don’t care about all that and just want to get straight to the good stuff, follow these directions carefully to help you get better search engine results from having embedded images.
Reaping SEO benefits from images
When you’re adding new images to an article, just make sure to add in all the metadata correctly before inserting the image into the article as shown in “Advanced SEO IMG Element Handling For WordPress (Part I)“.
It’s harder if you have already published the image. You have to make a decision:
- Fix only the
<img>alt and title attributes in your article. This is probably the fastest way to proceed, but you won’t have the metadata in your Media Lirbary if you want to use the image in a future article. - Fix the img attributes in your blog’s Media Library and reinsert each fixed image. This is the most accurate way, but it’s also the most time consuming.
- Use copy-paste to add the same text to both the img attributes in the web page source and in the media library. This splits the difference between the first two methods. You will have to have a couple of windows open, but it’s reasonably fast and reasonably accurate.
For images, you want to break this down into repeatable tasks so you don’t have to do it all at once.
I use Juicy Studio Img Analyzer to examine all the images on the page. The first time you run this tool, it can be overwhelming to see all the warnings and errors. But it’s worth spending a couple of hours analyzing your blog to see where potential problems could be.
Here’s a few suggestions for getting started:
- Knock out the front page first.
- Fix the
<img>element in the top post first. - Check search results for hot posts.
- Choose a random post that you like, with a fun image, fix that one.
- Wash, rinse, repeat over time as hot search terms evolve.
- Make sure to handle images correctly going forward.
- Keep track of posts with images that have been fixed.
If you’ve been blogging a while, and have loads of images without metadata, you’re not going to be able to fix them all at once. Just take your time and fix the most important, and make sure you get those alt and title attributes written correctly going forward.
Hi Dave. This post actually serves as a reminder to me, since I have still a back log of images to fix, particularly those older posts that I have been neglecting for a long time. Will have to find the time to do this though. Have a nice weekend
.-= DiTesco´s last blog ..Ad Intelligence: Advanced Keyword Research Tool =-.
@DiTesco – Thanks for the encouragement, always nice to see I’m on the right track.
Off to Foothill College now, for Silicon Valley Code Camp. Watch for a report over on tinobox.com a little later today or tomorrow.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Being Productive At Home Is Easy… Relaxing at home is hard! =-.
Uh-oh, I still have to put in meta data for images in my Media Library? Darn! Lots of work for me. Your tip about keeping a record of fixed posts is a great idea though.
.-= jan geronimo´s last blog ..Giving Good Loving To My Top Follow Friday People =-.
@jan – Don’t worry too much about the stuff in your media library unless you plan on reusing it extensively. Or screenshots. You should probably annotate any screeenshots while you can recall why you were using them. That kind of knowledge does get stales after a while.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..How To Write With Authority Despite Having No Authority =-.
Excellent advice. I am definitely guilty of not optimizing my images perfectly. Part of it is due to my lack of time. I will eventually have to go back and do a little fine-tuning.
.-= Gabe | freebloghelp.com´s last blog ..I use a frugal theme and couldn’t be happier =-.
I’ve never used the Media Library in WordPress, I’ll have to start using that.
Moreso, this series has reminded me that I should be using images in my posts to spice them up.
.-= Sean´s last blog ..Speed Bumps on the Road to Productivity =-.
@Sean –
I need to use more images as well. It’s proven that having the right image will increase readership. Finding the right image takes time though, and I’ve chosen to get my stuff posted (thus indexed) as fast as possible, then coming back later and refining articles with successive editorial passes.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Programming Is “Actionary” Blogging Is “Reactionary” =-.
This is going to be pretty depressing, I know I have a ton of old school images that I added to my site before it was a blog that need some search engine loving.
Heading over to play with the analyzer
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Fix Your TweetMeMe Retweet Button Settings =-.