8 Tips for Optimizing Your Law Firm’s Images for SEO

As you work to implement your digital marketing strategy for your law firm, you will likely incorporate some element of SEO. Not only should search engine optimization be a part of any digital marketing strategy, but you should remember to include images. With the proper images and captions, your content will be attractive and engaging. Take a few steps to optimize your images for SEO and watch your ranking rise.

Optimize the Size

Start by taking the time to choose the correct image size. Your page will load much slower if your image has bigger dimensions and higher resolution. Do what you can to scale down your file size while maintaining quality. As you optimize the size, pay attention to the compression rate. A mistake with this rate can lead to either poor image quality or an image that is still too large. Experiment a bit until you find the ideal balance. Don’t forget to test your image size optimization after this step to confirm you made progress.

Name the Files Properly

To maximize the SEO benefits of your images, make it a point to save them with a useful file name before you upload them. Use descriptive keywords that are relevant in the file name. Include your target keywords with hyphens (not underscores) separating them. You want your chosen image name to be logical from a human perspective and that of a search engine.

Choose the Image Title Carefully

If your website is made with WordPress, the image title will typically come from the file name, so you can skip this step. In other cases, or if your title is not explanatory enough, rename it. Follow the same rules you did with file naming. The image title plays a larger role in user engagement than in SEO, but it is still important.

Remember Captions

Captions will not always directly impact your SEO ranking, but they will always appear on your website. As such, they are crucial to the user experience. Most people read the captions to gauge the content overall. This means that if you do not have captions or if they are poorly written, you may have a higher bounce rate.

Include Alt Tags

Do not forget to include alt tags or alternative text in your image. This will give the search engines context so they can accurately identify the image. It will also help website visitors with visual impairments. Do not engage in overstuffing of keywords, but feel free to use words relevant to your law firm’s brand. Ideally, you want somewhere around 10 to 15 words, but there is not a hard set ideal.

Use Structured Image Data

When adding things to your image, include structured data. This improves the ability of search engines to show your images in the form of rich results. Google has its own Structured Data General Guidelines that can show you how to go about including this structured data.

Include Images in Your Site Map

Including a site map on your website will improve rankings since it lets the search engine know how your page is organized. Including images in your site map ensures that the crawlers find every image. In the site map, include the title as well as a description, caption, license information, and URL location. In the case of videos, include the title, URL location, and description as well as the raw video file URL and thumbnail URL.

Pick the Images Carefully

All of the above SEO tips will not have as much impact as you want unless you also choose the right images. Stock images are useful, but are commonly used on other websites. As such, stock images typically do not improve your search rankings much. Whenever you can, choose a unique image.

At the same time, ensure that the image is relevant to your text. A unique image that is unrelated will do you no good at all. If your text does not already have enough information to explain your chosen image, add a sentence or two that provides it and maybe even describe the image.

Takeaway

With the above steps underway, you should notice increased user engagement as well as a boost to your SEO rankings. It will require some time up front, but will be worth it in terms of the reward. If your law firm needs help implementing some of these SEO tactics, contact us for a consultation.