Why Stellar Hubs have lots of images - Massive impact on Search

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   Paul Maplesdenposted 9 years ago

   Hi folks,
   
   As you know, when you're editing a hub, one of the areas that helps you reach the 'stellar' hub levels is the number of images that you include. You might be wondering why this is important - The main reason is because images *really* matter for SEO.
   
   As a comparison, here's my traffic from Webmaster Tools for the last month:
   
   Firstly, web only (standard search):
   
   
   
   Next, with image search:
   
   
   
   As you can see, having a number of images with good captions that can be searched for can increase your queries by six times, your impressions by four times and more than double the number of clicks to your hubs.
   
   Hope this is useful to people.

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      colorfuloneposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, that is helpful to see the graphs.
      That is stellar information!

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         sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         That really is helpful thank you Paul.
         How is  loading time affected by the number of images placed on a Hub?  I have a lot of images on most of my pages since a lot of them are step by step tutorials.  I am uncertain as to whether or not I should be resizing them before I upload them. If so what is the optimal size I should make them please?
         Thank you.
         Sally

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            Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Sally,
            Download speed has nothing to do with the pixel dimensions of a photo.  It has to do with the file size of the photo.  To increase download speed, you can optimize your photos.  Here is one of thousands of free tools where you can do that: http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx
            
            You will lose some quality in optimizing so you might want to test the appearance on an unpublished Hub to see the difference.
            
            That said, I have never optimized my images for HubPages and I have some Hubs with 200 photos.  I have no problem with traffic or search engine rankings for those Hubs.

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               sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Writer Fox,
               I generally use freestone to reduce the size of images but am reluctant to reduce the quality of the images.  It does not seem to affect traffic or search engine rankings so i think I will leave things just as they are.  Thanks for your input.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Helpful information for certain, Paul. Thanks.

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      Thelma Albertsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the information. I do try to have plenty of photos in my hubs.

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   Paul Maplesdenposted 9 years ago

   Sally, I normally get images that are around 1,000 PX wide and HP resizes them downwards when they are uploaded. Many of my hubs are fairly image heavy and according to Webmaster Tools, the average page loading time is around 0.5 seconds. This leads me to believe that it's not an issue (and if you have lots of high-quality images, I am sure that your readers appreciate it.)

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      sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Paul.  I did however notice that on Google page speed insight -  that I am being asked to reduce my images between 5 and ten percent to increase the speed of the pages sampled.

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   Pollyanna Jonesposted 9 years ago

   Thank you, this is very helpful. I'll be mindful to label my pictures better in the future.

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   C L Mitchellposted 9 years ago

   Thanks for sharing this, I didn't realise that the image and labelling was so important for SEO. As a newbie, any further information that people can share on this topic would be much appreciated.

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   Paul Maplesdenposted 9 years ago

   I use the following guidelines when looking for images:
   - Ensure that you attribute them properly by providing a source
   - Make sure that you're entitled to use the images
   - Choose high quality images that complement the subject of your hub
   - Upload them at a minimum of 800 px wide, that way they will appear at a good resolution
   - Always include a proper caption (this helps Google index them and boosts your SEO)
   - Don't worry about image file names; these are changed when you upload them
   
   Two of the best sources for images are Flickr Creative Commons and Pixabay. Both provide images for free, although you need to provide attribution for Flickr. I use the Creative Commons search engine to find images to use: http://search.creativecommons.org/
   
   Hope this helps.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Does it matter if you do not attribute sites like Pixabay that do not require it?

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         Paul Maplesdenposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I do cite Pixabay, although it's not necessary under their terms. The only reason that I do cite them is because HP considers it good practice.

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         NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Pixabay has public domain images and you're not legally required to cite public domain images.

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            Paul Maplesdenposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Nate, for me it's not whether there's a legal requirement. HP best practice asks that you cite image sources wherever possible, and its something that editors consider for featured hubs, hubs of the day etc. It's very little extra effort for me to cite Pixabay, hance popping their name in the source box.

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               Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Photo citations are optional, and that is stated in the photo capsule when you are editing.
               
               Photo citations are not evaluated in the QAP process.
               
               Photo citations are only required for Hub of the Day.
               
               Photo citations are only required if the owner of the copyright requires them and are never required for photos in the Public Domain.

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   aesta1posted 9 years ago

   This is really useful. I have never bothered to label my phots and I had been deleting photos for fear that loading time will be affected. Thanks.
   
   You mentioned about size as different from pixels. What would be a good size for uploaded images?
   
   Regarding labels to images, do you have tips on how to do it well?

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      Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Watch this video and follow the instructions exactly for creating the Alt image tag (called a caption on HP):
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NbuDpB_BTc
      
      As far as size goes, make sure your images are at least 520 pixels wide (or 260 pixels wide if moved to the right of a text capsule).  HP will automatically adjust the size of larger pictures you upload and they will be fine.  If you upload a picture with smaller widths, they will be adjusted to the larger dimension and be distorted.

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         aesta1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks WriterFox.

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   sunilkunnoth2012posted 9 years ago

   That's a wonderful information. Thank you for providing this helpful tips.  I am always giving importance to images. So happy on your observation.

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   Suzanne Dayposted 9 years ago

   Just having good images on the page increases reader engagement too.
   
   If my hubs had no photos in them, no one would bother reading them.
   
   Regardless of captions, our audience is an audience that wants VISUAL and we have the chance to beat everyone else with the great platform HP provides.

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   C L Mitchellposted 9 years ago

   I'm just going through labelling my images now. Any suggestions or tips for the best way to do this for SEO?

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    chef-de-jourposted 9 years ago

    This is really useful, thank you Paul.
    For all writers who are not SEO experts - I have a query about SEO and captions. If you have say 20-30 images on a hub related to let's say V8 Engines in Italian Super Cars I guess you would have to be clever in your wording so as not to repeat keywords and enter into the realm of Keyword Stuffing?

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       Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       It's a major problem and I really hate not having a separate field to enter an appropriate Alt image tag that isn't the same as a caption.
       
       You can look at my Hub '200 Pictures of Roses' and view the 200 cross-purpose, caption/Alt tags I had to come up with.  I can't believe after nine years that HP hasn't fixed this problem. (I've personally asked several times!)
       
       The Alt tag should be between seven and ten words and accurately describe what is in the image, not how it relates to your Hub.  It has a completely different purpose than a caption.

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          Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          +1

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          Suzanne Dayposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          But use synonyms as well as much as you can while making use of the general description in the captions. I believe this helps, WF? (You know more about this than I do).

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             Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

             Alt tags should exactly describe what is in the picture.  Frankly, 'three red roses' is not the same as 'several scarlet flowers.'    This is a case where a rose by any other name is not as sweet!

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    makingamarkposted 9 years ago

    The advantage of Blogger blogs is you get
    1) a caption
    2) an alt tags field for the description of the image
    3) a title text field - which provides the words to describe the picture for those who are viewing through sites which don't load pics
    
    2 and 3 are available under the properties section of the image menu which pops up when you add an image
    
    Other sites do similar.

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       Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       This thread isn't about Blogger.

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          makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

          No but people have choices and HubPages isn't the only place that people can post content.
          
          The point I made was to illustrate that other sites don't seem to have any difficulty introducing these aspects for images. Given the internet has become a lot more visual I agree it's probably about time HubPages did the same

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