Bloggers Guide | Vanity Claire

AHOY HOY THERE.

In our most recent bloggers guide to SEO, we looked at no follow and follow links and how they apply to your blog. Today, we’re going to have a look at your blog’s images and how you can optimise them for search engines. HUZZAH AND CHEERS TO MERRY ENGLAND.

So, images are a HUGE part of blogging and most of us will try our best to take the nicest pictures as possible (if you are like us, then ‘try’ is the key word here). Not only are they a great way of drawing your readers in, but they’re equally as good for backing up your beauty review or showing how you would style your fresh new threads. Whether you have an amazing camera or try your best with your smartphone, most of us fashion, beauty and lifestyle bloggers will include some kind of images or photos into a post.

That’s all well and good, but taking lovely photos isn’t the only thing you should be thinking about when it comes to images on your blog. INTRIGUED?! You shouldn’t be, it’s actually quite boring…

Why should you optimise your images for search?

Optimising your images for search engines if a bit of an effort, but there is a very big and chunky reason why you should be bothered. Google’s tiny little robots can’t actually see image files. They read text, so if you haven’t tagged up your images properly, then they won’t know they’re there or they won’t know what to do with them.

But if you do tag up your images, there’s a huge opportunity for your blog’s pictures to appear in Google’s Image Search. Let’s all be honest with each other, if we’re looking for a hair dye review or foundation review, we often want to see results before reading on about the product. That’s why a lot of searchers head off to Image Search to have a nosey at whether a silver hair toner or whatevs actually works. While Google Image Search isn’t used as widely as regular Google, there’s a big opportunity there to get your images on the first page – and drive more people to your blog.

For example, here’s an image I tagged up properly in my Bleach London Awkward Peach Review that pops up on Google image search.

So…how do you actually optimise images for search engines?

As most of you fabulous bloggers will know, Google works on a keyword basis – i.e. if you type in a particular keyword, pages that are optimised well for that particular keyword will appear first. The same goes for images. If you label your picture ‘BlogImage.jpg’, search engines will rank that for ‘blog image’, rather than for ‘Lancome Foundation Review’, or whatever your blog post is about. So, the trick is to label your picture with the relevant keywords.

In WordPress, it’s pretty easy. When you add an image using your media library, there is an option to add a title, caption, alt text and description. It’s mainly the title and alt text that you want to focus on, as this will be the text that Google (or the search engine of your choice) will look at in particular. Label these to describe what your image is about. For example, if it is a picture of a pair of Topshop platform heels, then you will want your title or alt text to include that somewhere. If you don’t use WordPress, there should be a similar option in whatever content management system you use – just try and have a nosey about.

The Alt Text

Seeing things like ‘alt’ and ‘text’ together makes it seem hugely complicated and gets you ready to be like NAH TA, WON’T BOTHER. It’s not actually that complicated though, and the alt text is what Google will look at and be like ‘ah, so that’s what your pic was all about’.

BUT…what’s the difference between alt text and title tags for images? Well, pretty simple really. Alt text does have an impact on SEO, whereas title tags don’t. Title tags are more important from a user perspective, and you will know if your image has a title if you roll over the image, and a little box pops up with the title in it. Alt tags will appear in the code and will be what Google will look at.

Just for a bit of clarification, WordPress will automatically put the title as what you have saved your image as. If you change the title to ‘Topshop Platform Heels’, that’s what they will put in your alt text too. You can check what your alt text is by switching to the plain text viewing option and looking out for this code:

Your alt text should include a short, key worded description of what your image is about.

The Image File Name

It’s important that you save your image using keywords too. That will further help Google to understand what your image is about. For example:

A quick note on this too – use dashes to separate your words rather than underscores. This is because Google sees dashes as word separators and underscores as word joiners. For example:

Stylingo-Fashion-Blog = Stylingo Fashion Blog

Stylingo_Fashion_Blog = StylingoFashionBlog

Naming your images properly is something that’s easy enough to do as you go along, and can really make a big difference to how your images are ranked.

The Image Title Tag

As mentioned above, the image title tag isn’t as important as your alt text but its useful to have as a hygiene factor and from a blog reader point of view. Most browsers (e.g. Chrome, Internet Explorer or Safari) will take your title tag to display to your users rather than your alt text, so make sure that you bear this in mind when you pop in your title text.

The Caption

There’s been a lot of speculation as to whether Google takes into account image captions or not, but I think it’s ultimately up to you as to whether you use the caption option. The caption will directly appear in your blog post, and most bloggers aren’t that keen on them. Personally, I wouldn’t bother with the caption because I don’t like the way it looks on our blog. It won’t negatively affect you if you decide not to put a caption in, so don’t worry too much about it.

The Description

If you use WordPress like we do, you will have noticed the description box and may have wondered what its for. There’s no SEO benefit for filling this in and it only appears in your media library as a way of helping you remember what each image was for. Don’t bother with it unless you particularly need to describe the picture to yourself, paha.

Resizing Your Images

As a final note, its really REALLY REALLY important that you resize massive images before you upload them into a blog post. While yes, most browsers will alter them to fit your screen, it could take basically forever to load. You might lose readers and then we will all cry together. No one likes a slow loading blog. NO ONE.

So chums, hopefully this has been a bit helpful in giving you a bit of insight into how you can make sure your images are optimised best for Google (or the search engine of your choice…)

If you have any questions, just drop us a comment and we will say NO LEAVE US ALONE.

Hehe. Me and Claire aren’t really SEO experts (we save that title for the lunatics we work with that seem to think SEO is a fulfilling hobby), but we do know a thing or two about the murky world of search (why not go and have a nosey at our SEO tips for bloggers post for the cold hard proof, homegirls).

So, we’ve decided to put together a little bloggers guide to some of the questions we see pop up on Facebook and Twitter about SEO and making sure that your website is tip-top from a search engine point of view. Hopefully, they will help to clear up some of the quezzies us fashion and beauty bloggers have about our blogs.

In our first Bloggers Guide, we’re going to have a look at…

NoFollow vs DoFollow Links

Dofollow and no followlinks have been hot topics in the blogger groups that I’m part of on Facebook, and I’m sure that you might have seen people talking about them on Twitter too. There’s actually quite a big difference between the two. While they would look the same to your average blog visitor, the real difference is how they look to Google (or the search engine of your choice, but who uses Bing really).

HOLD UP…

For those who want a bit of clarification, links are one of the ways that Google uses to decide where to put your blog in the merry old search engine rankings. If a really good website or blog links to your blog, then Google will say to itself ‘GUT GOTT, this blog must be brilliant, I will rank it number one for ‘bad bitch blog’ (erm…that’s kind of how it works). In recent years, Google have put more weight onto good quality links, rather than the quantity of links your blog has. So, if a site like ASOS provide a link to your blog, its likely to give your search engine rankings a boost. If 1000 really wubbish websites give you a link to your blog, your blog might get flagged for being really wubbish too.

On the flip side, the links you give to brands, companies or other websites from your blog will give them a boost too. Google’s Guidelines are very specific on how you should link to other brands or websites, so it’s worth having a read about what it recommended and what is not. But how does all of this apply to ‘dofollow links’ and ‘nofollow links’?

What is a ‘dofollow’ link when its at home?

So, because Google looks at links as a way of determining the quality of a website, their little computer robots will ‘follow’ links to and from a website to decide where to rank your blog. If the links you provide are ‘dofollow’, Google will do just that – they’ll take into account the link you have provided or received.

As a blog owner, you’ll be keen to get high quality dofollow links to your blog because that will help you rank better in the search engine results pages (aka SERPs if you fancy getting techie). It’s also one of the reasons why brands and companies you might work with may sometimes ask for a link in a blog post you write.

How do you know if a link is ‘do follow’?

If you write your blog in WordPress or Blogger and use their content toolbar to add in links, its likely that these will automatically be ‘dofollow’. However, if you want to check, head into the ‘plain text’ viewing option. If your link is dofollow, it will likely look something like this in code:

<a href=”http://www.vanityclaire.co.uk>Stylingo</a>

You can also specify if you want a link to be dofollow, but the standard link HTML above will always be dofollow unless you tell Google otherwise. This is what it would look like if you want to tell Google it’s a do follow:

<a href=”http://www.vanityclaire.co.uk rel=”dofollow”>Stylingo</a>

What are the don’ts of a ‘do follow’?

This is a subject that’s widely debated and it can be a tricky one. The main thing to remember is that do follow links must be editorially given. It’s against Google’s guidelines to accept payment in return for a do follow link. For example, if you have a guest post or sponsored post on your website with a link to the brand and you have labelled that post as ‘Sponsored’, Google will think that your blog is violating its guidelines.

Whether or not you give a brand or website a dofollow link is usually a case of common sense. If a company directly says “I will give you £100 if you do follow link to my really good viagra website’, it’s usually a good idea to say no. But if you love a brand and they send you a product that you would have written about anyway on your blog, then there shouldn’t be any harm in giving that brand a dofollow link.

The key is everything in moderation and Google will quickly pick up if your beauty blog is writing a load of sponsored posts about how to lose 4 stone in 2 days, greyhound betting and trouser snake operations.

What about those pesky ‘nofollow’ links?

As you might have gathered, nofollow links are the exact opposite to do follow links. Instead of following a link like the real life stalker Google is, search engines will – in theory – put less weight onto it.

When should you use a no follow link?

Nofollow links are best used when you don’t particularly want Google to associate your blog with the website you’re linking to. It may be that the website is a bit spammy or downright rude, but a nofollow link will make sure that Google doesn’t connect your blog with that dodgy site.

If you do accept payment for a sponsored post, then the links you provide to the brand or website in question should be no follow. Don’t be surprised if a brand or website isn’t too interested after you tell them that the link will need to be nofollow. While, of course, you will know that its against Google’s guidelines for them to ask you to give them a dofollow in return for payment – it’s unfortunately still relatively common practice with some brands to do so. The best thing to do is say NO THANK YOU SIR, and move on with your life.

If you do decide to accept payment for a dofollow link, you won’t be arrested and killed by Google hitmen. It’s common practice for bloggers to put ‘sponsored post’ or ‘this is a paid for post’ at the end of a post that has been paid for, which is a way of staying in line with advertising standards. It can be surprising then, when brands might ask you to remove those words. The reason why they sometimes ask this is because this will red flag to Google that the link has been paid for. This can have implications for both the brand and your blog too. We’re not saying that this is right, but it is something that does happen and something that is useful to be aware of. It’s up to you as a blogger to decide what is appropriate for you and your blog!

The fact is, do follow links are valuable to brands. While no follow links aren’t useless (we’ll get onto that in a mo), they’re not always what brands are after.

How do you know if a link is ‘nofollow’?

If you want to make a link ‘nofollow’, you will need to switch over to your plain text editor again and use this HTML code around the link:

<a href=”http://www.vanityclaire.co.uk rel=”nofollow”>Stylingo</a>

Are nofollow links any use at all?

You might be thinking, “if dofollow links are so great, why would anyone be bovved about no follow links?”. On the surface, they look a bit like Solange compared to Beyonce (i.e. relatively rubbish). BUT there are actually a lot of benefits to a nofollow.

Firstly, it’s worth remembering the primary purpose of a link – to let people know that you like a website and that you would like them to visit that website too. While they may have little impact on SEO, no follow links can still drive traffic to your blog or the brand you’re linking to (for example, all links you leave in the comments section of other blogs are nofollow, but they will still drive some traffic to your blog).

There have recently been articles too about whether Google take into account nofollow links, and whether they will start doing so in the future. As with most Google updates, it’s usually difficult to predict what they’re going to do too far in the future. However, it’s worth noting that spamming nofollow links can get you into trouble, just as spamming dofollow links would.

Also, a well placed link on a relevant blog post or website can drive traffic to your blog. Increased traffic can help you rank better, and a nofollow link could lead to dofollow links as more people find out about your blog, read your content and generally become fans of your face.

A Bloggers Guide To…Optimising Images for Search

A Bloggers Guide To…NoFollow vs DoFollow Links

NoFollow vs DoFollow Links

HOLD UP…

What is a ‘dofollow’ link when its at home?

What about those pesky ‘nofollow’ links?

Further Reading