Do you wonder how many pictures your blog post needs to have? If so, that's what we're talking about today. We're also touching on how to optimize those pictures for SEO and how your blog helps you rank higher on Google or in ChatGPT and other AI searches.
Your blog can make a big difference to your online visibility, website traffic, and the leads your business generates. Learn how to use images, opt-ins, and even your podcast or YouTube videos to help increase the user experience and engagement time on your website, which will help you improve your overall SEO.
There's a lot more to this than just how many pictures to include in your blog post. Listen in today and find out.
Register now for the free live SEO class and find out the secrets to being found, generating leads, and making money from Google and in AI Search like ChatGPT.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/registration-seo-class
My free resources, including the Beginner's step-by-step SEO Guide and my free class, are available here.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/freebies
Learn more about 1:1 Elite Marketing Coaching, where we work together for 3 months on your business. I'll help you make more money.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/marketing-coaching
Join me in Simple SEO Content, my complete SEO and Content Marketing course that teaches you what to do step-by-step. It walks you through the entire process. (complete course)
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Join Simple Podcast SEO and learn how to grow your show quickly and easily in the self-study podcast SEO program.
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Podcast recording and editing - Descript
Episode Transcript
Hi, and welcome back to thepodcast.
Today I want to talk about yourblog, because you know your blog
is a great way to help increaseyour visibility, drive more
traffic to your website, show upmore often in Google, AI
overviews, AI mode on chat, GPT,et cetera, because each new
piece of content that you createis one more chance.
(00:22):
For you to help your website andyour business be found.
So now, if we're creatingcontent for our blogs, we want
to make sure that we're makingit content that our ideal
customer wants to read.
So you may have found yourselfwondering, not only like how
long should my blog post be, buthow many pictures should I
include in my blog post?
(00:43):
So let's talk about that.
And then the other question Iget is, does this stuff matter
to blog SEO?
So let's jump right in.
The number of photos that youuse in your blog, honestly,
technically does not impact yourSEO.
However, there are things we cando with your pictures to help
your blog or your pages SEO, tohelp you have a better chance of
(01:05):
showing up on Google or in AIsearch, and we'll talk about
that.
So with a typical blog post,there is no ideal word count.
There's no perfect word count.
As far as Google is concerned.
What we really wanna focus onis.
Creating content that's reallyhelpful and useful and
anticipates our ideal customer'squestions.
So when they're searching forinformation and they see our
(01:29):
blog either referenced in AIsearch or as a link that they
can go to in a traditionalGoogle search result, then we
want them to feel like.
We can help them and they wantus to help them.
If they're going to take thetime to read our blog post, then
we need to be able to providevalue.
(01:49):
So what we really wanna thinkabout when we're laying out our
content is what questions dothey have?
What information do they need?
What should I include in thiscontent piece Now.
With AI search, we wanna makesure that we're really focusing
on one question per blog post.
This is a little different fromGoogle, but we really do wanna
stay focused on just onequestion.
(02:09):
We're not as worried about thekeywords for ai.
AI is more about the questions,so we wanna make sure that we
are answering questions.
In our content.
Now let's get back to theimages.
So we're going to say, let'spretend we have a blog post
that's a thousand words.
It's a fairly in depth, but it'snot like super, super crazy in
(02:30):
depth, but it provides enoughvalue that it's helpful.
It gives them information andinsights.
That post would probably haveanywhere from two to four images
in it.
I personally see somewhere inthat 250 to 500 word range is
about where you should have aimage.
Now, I've seen some people say,you should have one every 100
(02:51):
words.
To me, that starts to feel alittle heavy on the images.
Like if I have a blog postthat's a thousand words, which
is approximately like a page anda half, two pages, if I were
writing a story, if that much.
And I have four images in it.
That's quite a bit.
Now, there are specialcircumstances where you actually
will potentially want moreimages, and that's if you're
(03:12):
doing like an in-depth how topiece, maybe you're a recipe
blogger and you wanna includestep by step and you want to
show them what it's gonna looklike.
Or if I am doing a blog post,like if I'm writing a blog post
for you and I'm talking abouthow to write title tags in
WordPress, I'm probably going toscreenshot what the interfaces
look like and tell you.
(03:33):
This is where you start, here'swhere you put this part.
This is what you do.
Just because it makes it easierto learn that way, to have the
words and the visuals.
So in some circumstances, somespecific posts, you may have
more images than in others, butin general, one image every 250
to 500 words is probably fine.
(03:53):
Now for me, I always have a heroimage at the top of my blog
post.
So that counts as one image.
So if I have a 500 word post, Imight not put another image in
it.
The other thing that I do tobreak things up,'cause really
your images are just abouthelping to tell the story,
giving more information, makingit easier to understand, but
also breaking up large textblocks because nobody wants to
(04:17):
read large text blocks.
So if somebody lands on yourpage.
And they see paragraph afterparagraph after paragraph, and
there is no headers, there's nobig font that helps separate it.
There's no images, all of that.
They're very likely just goingto leave because it's not a good
user experience.
So that's really why we wantadditional images, not only to
help tell the story, but also tohelp break up the content so
(04:40):
it's a better user experience.
So for me, I use a mix.
Of my header image, I use photosthat are royalty free or from
subscription services.
I have several subscriptionservices that I've used over the
years, and so you can reusethose photos because you've paid
for access to them.
(05:01):
There's lots of them.
There's social curator, there'sdeposit photos.
Um.
Those are the only two I canthink of off the top of my head,
but there are a lot of them outthere.
You just need to look and seeand make sure that you are
getting one where you haveaccess to the license, you're
allowed to use it.
You don't wanna get in trouble.
It's not as prevalent today, butprobably five to eight years
(05:21):
ago, there were a lot ofproblems with people pulling
images, just straight off Googleimages and maybe it.
Said it was okay for commercialuse, but then people would use
that image.
They wouldn't know that itactually was not okay for
commercial use.
And then they would be, theywould receive.
I got a letter from the companythat owned the rights to that
(05:43):
image, or their lawyer.
I've talked to people over theyears who had really large fines
because they pulled the wrongimage.
They didn't realize they pulledone they needed to copyright or
they, they didn't have accessto.
They didn't legally havepermission to use it.
So don't just go straight toGoogle images and look for
(06:03):
pictures for your blog post.
Make sure that you are gettingroyalty free.
You're taking them yourself.
You are using a subscriptionservice, whatever you're doing
for those images so you don'tget yourself in trouble, because
that's a really expensive lessonto learn.
I don't want you to have tolearn that.
The other thing that I do.
And that really helps break upthe content on the page, but
(06:24):
also helps to work on my salesfunnel and grow.
My email list is to include myopt-ins, graphic versions of my
opt-ins, and I drop those intothe blog post to help break it
up as well.
So if you look at my blog post,you're generally going to see an
opt-in for, maybe it's theBeginner's Guide to SEO.
(06:45):
Maybe it's the free class.
Sometimes if it's a podcast one,you're gonna see an opt-in for
the podcast guide.
So I try to do that.
I also, because I generally havea podcast episode now for each
blog post, I also embed thepodcast player because again, it
gives it a lit, it breaks it up,so it makes it a little easier
(07:07):
to read the post.
But now it also gives someonethe opportunity to listen if
they prefer to listen than toread.
In any event, what it's doing iskeeping people on the site
longer, and Google likes that.
Google looks at your analyticsdata to understand how long
people engage on your site, andthe more time they spend on your
(07:29):
site, or the more often theycome back, the better Google
believes that your site is.
So by doing that and embeddingyour podcast or embedding your
YouTube video right there inyour blog post, you can help
Google see that.
Not only do you have all thiscontent, but people interact
with it.
They like it, they watch it,they listen to it.
(07:49):
They spend time on your site.
Your site is a good one forthese type queries, which can
help your overall SEO.
So there's a another littleboost for your SEO.
Now the last thing I wanna talkabout are the optimization tips.
So when you're using images inyour blog post, and you should
be, you want to make sure thatyou're also optimizing those
(08:10):
images.
So you're going to want to makesure that you're using whatever
your core keyword is for thepage in your image file name.
So if you're taking pictures offyour phone, I don't want you to
upload them anymore with likeimage 6, 7, 8, or.
Homepage, dash header, like,let's put that keyword in there.
(08:30):
You're gonna use the dash, theone that looks like the minus
sign, and you're going to dokeyword dash, keyword dash,
keyword dash.
Now if you want to include yourbusiness name at the end, you
can do that.
That helps you show up and hasall those blog images show up
when someone goes to GoogleImage search.
(08:50):
Looking for more information.
Now, those blog post imageswill.
Potentially show up giving youmore visibility in the image
search.
So you do that, make sure youcontinue to use the dash, the
one that looks like the minussign.
Now, I did get a question theother day from one of my
students about alt text and shewanted to know, because I've
(09:11):
always historically taught touse your keyword in your alt
text because honestly, that'swhat I was trained to do 15
years ago.
Now there's more of a movement.
For inclusion and disabilityfriendly websites, all of that.
So we should honestly be puttinga description for people who use
(09:31):
like a reader to help themunderstand so we can put a
description about what thatimage is.
You can use a key word if itmakes sense, but like I was
talking to a friend the otherday who is another SEO
strategist, and she said shealways teaches her.
Students and her clients.
She's like, if it's a picture ofan apple, go ahead and just say
picture of apple.
Like it doesn't really need tosay key word because it's an
(09:56):
apple.
So for me, when I'm doing, let'ssay for example the free class
one, I will put the name of itis free dash SEO dash class dash
etched.
Dash marketing dash academy.
Yes.
It's super long.
It doesn't matter.
Then in the alt text, I don'tnecessarily say graphic image
(10:20):
of, I say, take the free clickto take the free SEO class.
That way if somebody islistening, they've got reader
that they're working with, it'sgoing to say, oh.
Click here to take the free SEOclass.
So yes, it's the alt text thattells us what the banner says,
but it also is optimized.
(10:41):
So if you can do it that way,that works great.
If not, if it's a picture of anapple, just say apple.
So, alright, hopefully thathelps you understand how many
pictures you should be using andhow they do or do not impact
your SEO for your website.
And remember.
(11:01):
When you are creating content,now you want to think about not
only your keywords for Google,but you also want to make sure
that you're thinking about yourAI overview, AI mode and chat,
GPT and whatever other AI searchtools, somebody's using
visibility.
So for your visibility, makesure you are addressing the
questions that they're askingand you are using them not only
(11:22):
in your copy, but in your headertags.
Your header tags are the bigtext that separates out your
page, that separates theparagraphs and makes it easier
to understand.
If you don't know what thoseare, you're not quite sure, get
the beginner's guide to SEO thatis.
At the freebies tab, etchedmarketing.com/freebies or take
(11:43):
the free SEO class.
Right now I'm teaching a classthat's all about how to show up
in Google and chat GPT, so younot only boost your online
visibility, you increase yourwebsite traffic and can
hopefully start to generate moreleads because the more people we
can get to know who you are andhelp find you and get to your
(12:03):
website.
The more emails you should beable to get on your email list.
Alright, that's it for today.
I will see you back here nextweek.
Bye for now.
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