Boost Your Website's Visibility with Proper Meta Data for Visuals
All images and visual materials in a website have an URL destination. This image URL is included in sitemap along with the URL destination of web pages. Or, the image URLs can be stored in a separate image sitemap. These sitemaps are located in the root directory located in the public_html file. It is the localized destination of the image sitemap (or image URLs in the website sitemap) which contain all of the meta data search engine bots require in order to index ( or store) these visual images in the search engine result pages.
The meta data for visual material includes the information required to optimize images for search engines. This image meta data includes three key criteria to help search engines understand the relevancy (or 'read the visual image) and index visual material.
Image Alt Description
Firstly, the sitemap contains alt (alternative text) descriptions which are written descriptions to help the visual impaired as well as search engine bots understand the information depicted in the image so that they can understand how it fits into the written content (or the context). The image alt descriptions should be optimized using keywords and keyword phrases for relevancy which improves the SEO performance of your website.
Compression and Image File Size
Secondly, the image map contains the compressed image file sizes. Use an AI Image Optimizer to compress the file images and retain high definition (also referred to as high resolution). High definition or resolution simply means the images are sharp, clear, and maintain their integrity or focus in a downsized version. Compressed images make your website more lightweight. Subsequently, compressed image files upload faster and don't slow down the browser which enhances the user experience, improves the quality of the website, and improve the SEO visibility and rank of your website in the SERPs (search engine result pages) which is the online marketplace.
Compression Can Drastically Reduce Your Website's Bounce Rate
Further to the importance of compressing image files, it is important to understand how it impacts the bounce rate of a website. The bounce rate can be defined in one of two ways. Firstly, the bounce rate is defined by Google in the following way, "it is the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. ...a rising bounce rate is a sure sign that your homepage is boring or off-putting". A slower browser is definitely one way to detract the attention of target audiences and increase the bounce rate.
This business of 'putting-off' is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as "slightly unpleasant or worrying so that you do not want to get involved in any way." What I find to be a real 'put-off' is when image files don't load into the browser and you're left wondering about what you are missing. The missing visuals create an incongruity which is 'slightly irritating' to most target audiences. It definitely detracts from the quality of the written content and leads to a higher bounce rate. Further to this business of 'bounce rates', the lack of high definition or high resolution also increases the bounce rate and detracts from the quality of your online presentation.
What is a Good Bounce Rate?
Monitoring the bounce rate is crucial to enhancing the user experience for target audiences. In general, a good bounce rate is considered to be 40 % or lower, while a bounce rate of 55 % or higher. Using image compression can drastically reduce the bounce rate.
Image URL Description
And lastly, the sitemap contains the image URLs. The image URLs should be short and relevant. Edit your URL by eliminating generalizations and meandering descriptions. And secondly, use keywords and keyword phrases to label image URLs to add relevancy for SEO recognition and credibility. A brief analysis is useful in order to demonstrate how easy it is to edit image URLs and improve the SEO performance of your website.
Image URL Editing Made Easy
Generic URL destinations such as IMG123456.png for images or 428x68HeedYou.png are meaningless and irrelevant. Search engine bots recognize keywords and keyword phrases which fulfill their protocols (relevancy, usefulness, credibility) that enhance the content (visual and textual) for the user experience of search engine bots.
A keyword optimized image URL for a PTC program as in the traffic site traffic_exchange_HeedYou.png is more informative than using numbers and banner sizes. Including a keyword as in 'traffic' or a keyword phrase as in 'traffic exchange' is important image meta-data to enhance the user experience for the visually impaired as well as to help search engine bots recognize the relevance of the name HeedYou to your PTC downline builder website.
Manual Image URL Optimization
There is an extensive selection of premium and free AI image optimization tools for image compression and high definition such as ImageOptim and TinyPNG. I personally use ImageOptim. It has a super user-friendly interface which allows me to optimize images easily and quickly.
Image URL optimization requires manual tweaking.
If you haven't considered proper image URL optimization, you will need to do some tweaking about the descriptors. Proof read and if needed, manually do the edits for keyword and keyword phrase-optimized image files.
It is well worth the time and effort to optimize image URLs to make them search engine-friendly so that search engine bots (that periodically crawl your site for updates) are able to recognize (relevance), read (digest), and index (store) visual material.
The numerous benefits include improved visibility and ranking, increased organic traffic, and enhanced user experience for bots and people, and the overall upgrade for the authority and credibility of your website.
URL Length: How long should an URL be?
The URL length is determined by the number of characters in an URL. The maximum length depends on the browser software such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and so forth. "You are on the safe side if you use an URL length of 2,083 characters or less." (This definition is courtesy of Sistrix.com, an SEO website checker.)
Final Thoughts
Remember that 'an improved SEO performance' means better visibility in the search engine pages because your website receives a better rank in the long list of websites listed in the online marketplace. And secondly, it means a surge of organic traffic to redirect target audiences to your website. For PTC marketers this means free advertising for your PTC Downline Builder website courtesy of search engine bots. In short, this free organic search engine traffic is referred to as 'passive advertising'. And if you can harness the power of passive advertising; you can also harness the potential of earning a 'passive income' in PTC.