YES! Photos can help boost your SEO! When we optimize pages or blog posts for your counseling website, we write the alt text for each photo with keywords you are trying to rank for in search engines. The alt text allows visitors to page understand what the photo is about if they cannot view it for any reason. This is especially important for accessibility reasons because the alt text is what will be read by a screen reader. It is also what is displayed if the picture does not load. Even though the alt text may not be visible on the page, it is still very important in helping your rank higher for your targeted key words.
There is no magic “right” number of photos per a page. It depends on a lot of different factors. How much text is on the page? What pictures will help illustrate the point you are making?
At Simplified SEO Consulting, we typically recommend at least 3 photos per page for the main pages on your site. This includes your home page, service pages and blog posts. These are also the pages we strongly recommend you have at least 500 words per page of text. For More information please see our post about the ideal length of blog posts. Because these pages have a good amount of text on them, three photos can visually help break up the text. Furthermore, that gives us three places to add alt text which can help your SEO. That brings us to our next point…
Alt text is our super secret SEO tool
Alt text is a popular abbreviation to describe what is happening in an image in the HTML code.
We call alt text our super secret tool because it has powerful SEO benefits that directly impact the number of clicks you will receive when someone searches for the key word you are targeting. This happens because the alt text appears in the HTML code which is what Google or other search engines use when looking at a page to determine how it will index and where it will rank.
An example of a photo that allows for you or your SEO specialist to add appropriate alt text regarding counseling for adolescents.
Choosing a good photo is important, not only to your brand, but to how you will rank on search engines. When we optimize your photos, we add alt text that specifically describes the image. Therefore, it is important to choose a photo that relates to the content of your page and is appropriate for the key word you are trying to rank for. For example, a therapist who is writing a page on therapy for adolescents would want to choose a photo that actually contains a picture of a teenager so the alt text will reflect the key words that are being targeted for that page.
At Simplified SEO Consulting we believe that therapy is a powerful healing tool. We believe that the photos on your counseling website should show how helpful therapy can be to treat mental illness and how it can bring positive healing to our clients. Therefore, we encourage our clients to choose photos that show the desired positive outcomes therapy can have in the lives of the clients we treat. For example, when writing a page on depression we would avoid choosing a photo of a person looking depressed, and instead choose a photo of a happy individual. We would optimize this photo with a caption saying that this individual was happy after receiving counseling for depression.
This photo would be a great example displaying a happy & confident client after seeing a therapist.
Are you ready to boost the rank of your page on search engines? Do you want to know more about optimizing photos and writing alt text? Follow these steps to learn more.
In addition to adding and editing photos, Simplified SEO Consulting offers a variety of other SEO services designed to help you boost your SEO. We offer done for you monthly packages, SEO training, alumni & maintenance packages, and a la carte services. We also offer a wide variety of SEO resources for private practice owners, and helpful blog posts. If you aren’t quite sure that SEO is for you, please consider enrolling in our FREE 7 day SEO email class to learn more!
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This is great information Jessica. Thank you for sharing and keep up the great work.
Thanks so much, James! We all appreciate your encouraging feedback!
Great information! I will use this to review my website and make some changes if needed. Thanks!
Thanks Cheryl, please reach out if you need any support!