Including Image in Webpage May Ensure Top Rank in Google
For a long time viewers are flocking to some of the pages of my website through Google’s image search. To give an example, if you type the phrase ‘how to write business letter’ in image search of Google, the 3rd top result is that of the webpage, ‘how-to-write-a-business-letter.html’ of my site.
When I do organic search for the same phrase in Google, my page however doesn’t list in top results. So, why is image search so benevolent to my webpage whereas the organic search is not?
The reason is I’ve an image of a structured business letter in that page. The key-phrase of the page is ‘how to write a business letter’, and though the image-name is not the key-phrase, the page still ranks as high as the third position (as of this writing) in Google image search results.
This obviously means 2 things. First is of course that surfers are increasingly doing image search with their chosen search term. Second, if the image name too is after the key-phrase, chance is the webpage will continue to enjoy top ranks over a long term.
If that seems a juicy proposition, wait before you run to include images in all your web pages. Why?
Suppose your page with an image ranks high in Google’s image search results. However, when the image is clicked in search results, the page that Google displays is not your webpage. It’s rather a Google page in 2-part frames in which the lower half is your actual webpage to which the image belongs.
Okay, Google allows the upper frame to be removed so that your webpage is displayed, but that depends on the visitors’ wish.
In other words, in order that your actual page is displayed the visitor will have to click a second time to remove Google’s frame. And we all know how hard it is for a second click to come by.
The question is will the visitor click a second time so as to actually come to your webpage?
Let me answer it as I understand. If I do an image search, and from the search results come upon a similar frame-page that Google presents, I’ll scan the lower half to find if the webpage has something of interest for me.
Only when I know the page does have material to invoke my interest would I click to remove the frame to read more in that page and in the process be counted as a visitor to that page.
In fact if I really find the page content interesting, won’t I like to have more of it unhindered? Oh yes, and so I’d remove the Google frame as if to sweep aside an irritant.
What clearly follows is that only an image or 2 is barely sufficient to retain visitors’ interest in a particular webpage of your site.
Yes, image does enhance the possibility of it being found in Google image search results, but beyond that it is purely the strength of the page’s other content that will lure the visitors to lend it more time.
Savvy webmasters know since long as to how to reap the benefit of Google’s image search facility to increase visibility. There is though a school of thought that overusing key-phrase in a webpage may not after all be a healthy doing, for it may be taken as keyword-stuffing by search engines. More on this topic can be found at Isaimini blog.
However, as long as you’ve great contents to show off, my experience is you stand to win over the long term even if there are certain things in your site, that border on non-acceptance.
Keeping that in perspective, I’ve a few suggestions regarding image search that I feel will augment optimization effort for a webpage.
