SEO Your Pictures

There are many, many factors that affect search rankings and the NAME of the .jpg file is a vital point.  Here are the basics for SEO in WordPress but this applies to any sort of web development. The most vital consideration when using pictures on your site is ensuing that you are not infringing on a copyright. We cover that as well.

• Write the article in the WordPress composition window straight off. No need to use a separate word processor.  ALL text formatting needs to happen in WordPress.  If you paste in text that’s preformatted, then use the little tiny eraser tool in the toolbar to delete formatting.  Just highlight the text and click the button.  If you’re pasting in HTML formatted text, that’s fine and it needs to go in the “text” editor tab, not the “visual” editor tab.  These two tabs are tough to spot.  Just above the composition area on the right side.

• Find photos and rename them before putting on the site. Make ABSOLUTELY SURE you only use images that are open commons or show up on Google Images > Tools > Usage Rights> Okay for reuse. If you have a picture in mind, you can use Google Images to run an image search.

This will show you all the occurrences of the image on the web. If you see an image on a “Stock Image” site, you definitely shouldn’t use it unless you purchase the image. PixaBay is a great place to get free, open-source images.

• When you upload an image into the WordPress Media Library, you’ll see some important things on the right-hand side of the window, particularly File Name and Alt Name.  After you upload, you will see the File Name.  Copy the file name EXCEPT the .jpg and paste it in the Alt Tags.  Google gives a big ranking boost if the pic file names and alt tags include key words that match the page they are displayed on. Vast numbers of web smiths put up DCM972.jpg.  Lazy!

• There’s a function in the WordPress Dashboard whereby you can save a page as a draft.  It’s the same place where the “Publish” button is on the upper-right hand corner of the page/post editing window.  IMHO sending me the text of the article in an email is unnecessary.

• SEO by Yoast is one of our most vital plugins.  At the bottom of the area where you compose a page, you’ll see the Yoast SEO wizard.  You put in a key word (In the PRO version it allows a phrase) and it scores the page like a traffic light.  If you look at the home page you’ll see that I’ve got all but one green light.  Note that I optimized on the word Taxi. Google knows it’s a Galveston company already and Galveston is in the domain name.  Yoast also has a few other things it does in the background like XML Sitemaps which go automatically to Google when the site changes.Once you see how the Yoast wizard works, you’ll just naturally include these attributes in your writing.

Once you publish a page, it will show up under Appearance > Menus where you’ll see it in the box on the left.  Click the checkbox for that page and then “Add Page”  Then it will show up at the bottom of the adjacent window where you can drag and drop the menu items.