We all know that the search engines can’t “see” or “read” the graphics on our
pages. We also know that we need to provide text on a page, so the spiders will
have something to crawl and index. After all, we have to prove to the search engines without a shadow of a doubt that our pages are about what we say or claim
they’re about if we want to achieve top rankings. That’s why I believe so
strongly in focusing each page on one single keyword phrase only. As soon
as a spider hits a page, I want the spider to know exactly what that page is
about.
But, many sites out there are graphic intense,
often by virtue of their very nature. The sites may sell prints, wallpaper,
pictures, graphics, or posters. Or, the sites may sell hats, for example, so
that each page is full of pictures of a particular type of hat.
Many Web site owners don’t want to add text to
those pages, because they want to highlight exactly what they’re selling.
They’ve created the site with their audience in mind, which is as it should be.
After all, when visitors stop by a wallpaper site, they want to see loads of
pictures of the different wallpaper samples. They don’t want to read about them!
So, being careful to adhere to Google’s Guidelines that prohibit
hiding text, what options do we have with our graphic-intense site?
Let’s look at some possible solutions.
1. Can you put visible text above or below the
graphics on the page? If so, this is your best solution, because you’re giving
the engines some content to crawl.
Simply add a paragraph of content above the
graphics, and then a paragraph or two of content below the graphics. Make sure
the content focuses on your keyword phrase and that it describes the page
accurately.
If you don’t want to add a full paragraph of
content above the graphics, try adding a heading tag containing your keyword
phrase. Then, add content beneath the graphics.
The bottom line is: you want to start the page with
text if at all possible, not graphics.
2. Be creative! Can you add descriptive text about
each graphic under or beside the graphic? Can you add little “Tips” or “More
Info” boxes on the page that contain valuable information for your users and
keyword-containing text for the engines? Can you include testimonials from happy
customers that will add valuable keyword-containing content to your page?
3. Leave your existing graphic-intense pages the
way they are, and create some new text-based interior pages that are full of
valuable content related to your graphics. Pull in traffic through those pages,
and provide text links to your pages full of graphics. Be sure to use your
important keyword phrase in the link text that links to the pages of graphics.
Keep in mind that these new pages are interior
pages, which means that they should provide a link to other pages on your site,
and your site should provide a link back to those pages. If you’ve done your
homework right, these new pages are providing value to your users, therefore
providing value to the search engines, so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t
want to link to these new interior pages.
Can you use redirects from the text-based pages to
the pages of graphics? I highly recommend not doing so. The engines have
never been fond of redirects for one thing. But, even if your redirects aren’t
“sneaky” (as Google says in their Guidelines), if you don’t use text links with
the keyword phrase in the link text, you’re missing out on one of the most
valuable search engine optimization strategies available to you: using your
keyword phrase in link text pointing to your pages.
4. You can leave your existing graphic-intense
pages as they are, and instead concentrate on “off page” factors such as
building link popularity to those pages and making sure that the pages
linking to the graphics pages use link text that contains your important keyword
phrase. In other words, you can work on your “link reputation.”
After all, you can compete with the big boys using
almost any strategy that is detrimental to search engine rankings if your link
popularity and link reputation is strong enough, and if the sites linking to you
describe your site using your important keyword phrase.
By “strong” enough, I mean that the links should be
from popular, authoritative sites in your topic area. Sheer numbers aren’t what
we’re after here. We’re after links from popular and authoritative sites in our
topic area. We’re also after links that use our important keyword phrase in the
link text describing our pages.
In Conclusion
Though the best solution is to add text to your
pages of graphics, sometimes you (or your client) won’t want to go that route.
They may want to keep the existing pages just as they are.
In those situations, it’s important to have some
“Google friendly” solutions that will give you the best chance at achieving top
rankings for your pages, while making sure that you’re following the guidelines
as stated by Google.
This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons License We all know that the search engines can’t “see” or
“read” the graphics on our pages. We also know that we need to provide text on a
page, so the spiders will have something to crawl and index.
