Photos are Powerful for SEO, Especially with Proper Tagging
In today's digital world, photos have become a make-or-break element of SEO and content marketing. With Surprise, Arizona businesses increasingly competing for attention online, properly optimizing imagery should be a priority. When done right, photos boost click-through rates, time on site, social engagement, and most importantly, search engine rankings.
The key is adding relevant, strategic tags and alt text to images before publishing them across your website and social media platforms. Much like emphasizing keywords in content helps search engines understand relevancy, photo tags serve the same function. This guides search engines and users directly to applicable visual assets.
Tap Into Surprise's Thriving Local Scene
Surprise provides no shortage of lively community events, scenic parks and trails, popular attractions like Surprise Stadium and recreational complexes, plus endless shopping and dining options. Local businesses have plenty of opportunities for engaging, locally-focused photos. Tagging these with "Surprise, Arizona", or similar geographic variations ensures the imagery ties directly back to local SERP performance. Any images showcasing specific locations, landmarks, or hyperlocal happenings should always include the city name in tags.
Photos also provide immense value showcasing products, services, properties, real estate, dishes at restaurants, etc. This visual nature of photos tends to drive higher click-through rates from searchers. Just be sure alt text and tags accurately describe what is pictured to optimize for relevant searches.
Maximize Your Metadata
Ideally, tags should include a handful of precise, keyword-rich phrases describing the image contents. Avoid generic terms like "food", "restaurant", "vacation". The geo-tags, as mentioned, are also vital for location-based queries.
Some additional metadata best practices include:
Title - Short, descriptive phrase summing up the image
Caption - Briefly explain what is shown and why it's valuable/noteworthy
File Names - Use dashes to separate keyword-rich descriptors
All this metadata contributes to search engine visibility just like content on your pages. So leverage it strategically with SEO in mind.
Embedding images then linking back to prominent pages on your site can further help search ranking efforts. For example, an eye-catching hero image on the homepage with tags and captions guiding users to explore the menu page or visit the patio.
Tap Into Social's Visual Nature
Photos tend to achieve greater engagement on social channels compared to text-based posts. Local businesses can leverage this to raise brand awareness and visibility. Share event photos, seasonal menu previews, store promotions, or other visually compelling content.
Strategically tagging the associated business name, location, products, etc. within image metadata helps social engagement convert to SERP wins. Any social shares also produce valuable backlinks to your website when photos are published directly to your platforms.
Surprise, Arizona provides endless fodder for share-worthy, locally-focused imagery. Photos personalized to residents and the area's lively happenings will resonate most across social media. This community-connected imagery then guides localized searchers straight from social sites back to your business's website doors.
The Power of Alt Text
Alt text is essentially invisible to users, but visible to search engine algorithms. This provides a prime opportunity to insert descriptive phrases, keywords and geo-tags search engines may overlook elsewhere. Alt text also helps images load faster, provides accessibility for disabled visitors relying on screen readers, and displays on occasions when images fail to load.
When publishing photos across your website, social platforms, paid ads, email campaigns, etc., take advantage of all available metadata. Insert relevant alt text and visual tags showcasing your Surprise locale, products, services and community happenings. Properly optimized visual assets boost local SEO far beyond text-based content alone. Images attract visitor eyeballs, then strategic tagging converts views into customers.