<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Optimizing-Images-300x200.jpg" alt="Optimizing Images" width="300" height="200" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-10804" />Gaining better SEO from your blog or website requires properly optimized images. This is one of the easiest ways for many website owners to rank better without spending a ton of money on SEO. Here are some of the SEO basics you should be using and how to better optimize your images.

<h2>Basics of SEO</h2>

Before we get into image optimization, let's go over a few basics of SEO:

<ul>
<li>Choosing a Domain Name - Make sure it's relevant to your website/business and easy to remember. Get a .com, if possible, but many other extensions will also work well.</li>
<li>Page and Post Names - The URL of your pages and posts will usually be a number system by default. Make sure you rename each to include keywords or match the title.</li>
<li>Keyword Research - Doing proper keyword research will help, but focusing on topics is better when writing your content. Make sure you have an idea of the focus for your keywords, however.</li>
<li>Social Media - Using social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest go a long way to helping your SEO.</li>
<li>Interlinking - Whenever it makes sense, add a few links to blog posts to pages or other blog posts on your website.</li>
<li>External Links - If you use another website as a source, link to them, especially the well-known sites.</li>
<li>Backlinking - While backlinks can be very important, you want these to happen naturally, which means you need high quality content on your site.</li>
</ul>
Along with these basics of SEO, you need to make sure you write quality content with plenty of headings. Longer content is preferred by search engines, but it cannot be fluff. When you provide 1,000+ words of great content, it has a better chance of ranking higher compared to just writing 300 or 500 words of content. 

<h2>Optimizing Images Properly</h2>

Another important part of your SEO strategy should be using and optimizing images. At least one image per blog post should be used, but using more is always preferred. The images have to make sense with the content, however. Here are a few great ways to optimize your images.

<strong>Use Keywords When Naming Images</strong>

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SEO-Basics-300x200.jpg" alt="SEO Basics" width="300" height="200" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-10805" />When you name the images you plan to use on your websites, use keywords, as long as they make sense. If the image is of a black bear and you want to name it red squirrel, it won't make much sense. However, if your keyword is black bear, it makes perfect sense. 

For businesses, if you put up images of products, make sure they carry the proper name for your product. If you only serve the local area, make sure your images include the city, county or state you are targeting, as well.

<strong>ALT Text Are Important</strong>

Along with naming your images properly, you need to use what is known as an ALT text or alternative text. This text will display when a visitor mouses over the image. This is a great place to use long tail keywords, when they make sense. Often, website owners will match the title of the image with the ALT text, which works great, if you have good image titles.

<strong>Optimize for Speed</strong>

Another trick with images is to make sure they don't take forever to load. You can use a number of plugins for WordPress or extensions for other CMS options to optimize your images for size and speed. Most of the best plugins and extensions won't cost you image quality either.

<h2>Better SEO for More Traffic</h2>

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/45690594_s-150x150.jpg" alt="SEO" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-10718" />Whether SEO is your main marketing strategy or you don't care too much about it, a few simple tricks can help you rank better on Google. Even if you're brand new to blogging or having a website, you can use the advice above to ensure you have properly optimized images. In addition, follow some of the basics of SEO above and you'll be in better shape.

If you're not sure the best way to go, look at the website ranking well for your keywords. You can view the source of the page with a right click of your mouse and see how they are optimizing their images to help build your strategy.
