5 Essential Photo SEO Practices to rank higher in search engines

Optimizing your image file names and alt text is a crucial aspect of expanding your website's reach. By employing this technique, potential clients and customers can easily find you, your products, and service. This article will provide some of the best photo SEO practices that small businesses’, artists, and photographers can use to improve their website's ranking in search engines. By using these 5 tips, it’ll be easier for potential clients and customers can easily find you, your products, and your services.

1. Use Descriptive File Names and Alt Text

One of the most basic yet essential SEO practices is to use descriptive file names and alt text for your images. When uploading an image to your Squarespace website, make sure to give it a descriptive file name that includes relevant keywords. For example, instead of "IMG_1234.jpg," use "portrait-photography-new-york-city.jpg" if it's a portrait photo taken in New York City.

• Use hyphens in your titling. On the web hyphens/dashes (-) are used as spaces between words in your titles. Google and other search engines used hyphens/dashes as separators between words. You can utilize underscores (_) as periods before sentences.

  • Example: your-company-name_portrait-photographer-headshots-brooklyn.jpg

• Also, make sure to include alt text for each image, which is the text that appears when an image can't be displayed. Alt text should be descriptive and include relevant keywords, but avoid keyword stuffing. More on this below.

2. Optimize Image Size and Compression

Image size matters! Large image files can slow down your website's loading speed, which can negatively impact your SEO. To optimize your images for web, make sure to resize them to the appropriate size before uploading them to your Squarespace website. You can also use image compression tools to reduce the file size without sacrificing quality. Squarespace automatically optimizes images for the web, but it's still important to upload properly sized images to begin with. Keep your file uploads to 20 MB or smaller for best loading speed.

• Slideshow/full span banners:

  • Image width 2880px | Image height 1500 px

• Blog Images:

  • Image width 1550px | Image height auto (depends on the image)

• Blog Images:

  • Image width auto (depends on the image) | Image height auto 1500px

3. Use Relevant Keywords in Page Titles and Descriptions

Your page titles and descriptions are important for both users and search engines. Make sure to include relevant keywords in your page titles and descriptions to help search engines understand what your pages are about. Squarespace makes it easy to edit page titles and descriptions, so take advantage of this feature and include relevant keywords in these areas.

The more specific you are with your keywords, the more they will work for you! Think of how someone may find you/your business. Get general then scope inward. That’s the beauty of using a variety of images with descriptive text throughout your site

• Example: brooklyn-portrait-photographer.jpg

4. Create Unique and Engaging Content

Search engines love fresh, unique, and engaging content. As you can create blog posts, portfolio pages, or giving your site an update with new photos and content that showcases your work to provide valuable information for your audience. Make sure to include relevant keywords in your content, but avoid over-optimization. Aim to create content that's valuable to your audience.

5. Build High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website. Search engines view backlinks as a sign of authority and relevance, so it's important to build high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. You can reach out to relevant websites in your niche and ask for a link back to your website. You can also create valuable content that's shareable and can attract backlinks organically.

Bonus Use your media library!

• On your Squarespace site, take advantage of your Media Library. If you’d like to use an image that you previous uploaded, instead of adding a duplicate image, find it in your Media Library

  • To access the Squarespace Image Library, add an image-based block and click the + to add an image, then choose "SELECT FROM LIBRARY" in the dropdown.

  • This will open up a library of all images you've ever uploaded to Squarespace

  • Why this is great:

    • You can add an image that you've already uploaded in the past, without having to upload it again.

    • You can also use the search bar at the top to search for particular images. which takes advantage of your image’s descriptive text!

    • You can select images and delete them if you don't need them anymore.

    • You can even find Free and Premium stock images too, which is a fun extra feature!

In conclusion, Squarespace is a great platform to build your websites, but it's important to implement SEO best practices to improve your website's visibility in search engine results pages. By following these photo SEO practices, you can optimize your images, create valuable content, and build high-quality backlinks to improve your website's search engine ranking.