Using Images in your Content Marketing

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a very complicated issue with many diverse fields working collectively to ensure that your intended target market locates your online information using a search engine.   Each of the  many disciplines adds its own set of values to your SEO in subtle ways that most SEO practitioners deem irrelevant and ignore.

The most noticeable culprit here is the KEY WORDS meta tag in the head section, which Google says is not used in determining your PR (Page Rank), and so most SEO practitioners ignore the key words meta tag and its great value to each of  your pages and your web site as a whole, especially when determining the aboutness of your work.


This article by Jenny Maclean covering the use of images in your content marketing is very interesting, and gives you some good pointers.








Content marketing is a big component of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and should not be viewed as competition to SEO but rather as a supplement to SEO. Images are an essential part of content marketing and the value  that images add to the SEO efforts of your work should never be under-estimated. This sounds confusing, but SEO is used in content marketing, and content marketing is a very large component of Search Engine optimization, which is why you need to be careful of separating the two but yet understanding that they are interconnected and part of the same bundle of confusion called marketing.

One of the most important things from an SEO perspective to remember when using images are the XML markup within the image, which your viewers will never even know exists, just as most of those who visit your web pages have no idea that all web pages have a <HEAD> section.  Image title, image description, image related key-words and other image describing elements can, and should be added to the image XML data, and saved in an embedded format as part of your image. You need to make sure that these embedded XML elements are directly related to your site content matching your in-page SEO content, especially any META DATA that you may have placed within the <HEAD> section of your page if you have access to it.

Unfortunately the <HEAD> section is not available when using many blogging platforms, and many web design programs also use wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) platforms which exclude access to the <HEAD> section of your pages. What you as an SEO practitioner need to do,  is take some time to evaluate the image that you will be using in the context of

• where this image  will reside within your page, 
• what you are trying to portray with the image
• what the image represents, 
• what is the purpose of including this image
• how this image will impact on your SEO
• who your target market is, and how they will react to your image
• how this image relates to other in-page SEO issues

You then need to ensure that the relevant SEO specific set of  image related key words, image title, image description and other relevant image related XML data such as image geo location, image date and all other issues relevant to your  image are best suited to your IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) and included in the embedded  image XML by your graphic design team or image optimisation specialist..
 If you use the same base set of variables within the <HEAD> section of your page and include the same or similar  set of key words in your page as well as the embedded  image XML data elements, then your image will get an awful lot more attention from Google and other search engines. Most web design people forget about the power of this embedded XML data that is used by image designers to manage image classification and image description.

Graphic art designers use these embedded XML data sets that are stored within the image XML data, very differently to web design, or SEO staff and place XML data that is not relevant to search engine optimisation within the embedded image XML for graphic design people to use.

As    Jenny Maclean   says in her article , some sites gain a considerable amount of their Google traffic through Google Images rather than the main web search. If you want to rank well in Images, make sure your image files are aptly named,  but you also need to ensure that your image has the right XML data embedded within the image, so that search engines can index and manage the embedded XML Search Engine compatible elements  in ways that benefit your total SEO effort.

GET YOUR IMAGE DESIGN TEAM ONTO THIS and remember to apply FUFISM (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) see http://fufism.info4u.co.za for more info on integrating your SEO efforts to ensure better SERP's.

As always the selection of your target market  is important to your SEO tactics. Understanding how your selected target market will react to your image is also essential, and the XML embedded into your image file should take this target market reaction into consideration when choosing the image name as well as the embedded XML data for your  image key words, image title and image description.

The embedded XML data that is associated with all images that you will be publishing within your pages should be discussed with

• your copy writer,
• your  Social media team
• Your web site design team
• your marketing  and advertising teams
• Your public relations team
• your SEO team
• others who are identified through the application of your FUFISM policies.

It thus follows that your web design team, your Social media team, your blog team and all others working on any aspect of your online marketing all understand that you need to be working together as a solid, unified team when it  to comes to SEO issues.  Each member of the team needs to ensure that their knowledge in their specific field is integrated into your marketing strategies through the application of FUFISM (Functional User Friendly integrated Social Media)  This integration can only be achieved through closer working relationships between all the role players, with an understanding of what each role player actualy contributes to your marketing, and the methods used to ensure that each role players input is  appreciated by the other members of the team.

If you were un-aware of the embedded  XML data that can be used in your images, then you need to take some time out and discuss what embedded XML data can actualy be included in your images embedded XML data with your graphic design team or image management staff.

Be pro active and inform the rest of your SEO team of issues that you believe should be included by talking about them at marketing meetings...

World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques

 This post below is a good entry level post on off page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which I would like to expand on.

World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques : Today my topic of discussion is: Off Page Optimization. I would like to entertain my readers with every minute aspects of SEO and their techniques so that they become self-independent in managing their website traffic and quality.

SEO or Search Engine optimisation is a tricky business with many mis-informed  people proclaiming that SEO is dead, because they do not have a clear understanding of the term SEO and what it means.

SEO or search engine optimisation is the collective work of your entire staff in their attempts to ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market when they use any search engine to find your information.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into 2 (two) major sectors. The first is in- page  SEO and the second is off page SEO  

IN-PAGE SEO

In-page SEO has two components which are each aimed at different target markets, and have very different purposes, but both are used collectively when doing any off page SEO. It is essential that any SEO practitioner explain this to you in terms that you understand, other wise you will not be very successful in your off page SEO.

The first component of in-page SEO is the stuff contained within the head section of your page, which is written specifically for the Search Engines. This section of your page is not visible to the end user, and contains all the META TAGS and related information including but not limited to

• Page description
• page title
• Keywords list
• author and contributors
• categories and    geographical info
• language and script info  

 The second component of in-page SEO is the body section of the page, which is written specifically for the viewer or end-user of your page. This section contains all the text, images, videos and other visual stuff which the end user will see onscreen when the page is loaded in a browser.  

The body section of the page is used by search engines to determine the aboutness of a page, and the text used here is what the search  Engines  will index in their databases to match to the queries that searchers use when looking for your information. 

Search engines try to match the aboutness of your page to the aboutness of a search query using a wide variety of variables, most of which are contained in the Off-page SEO of your pages.

In short the head section is written for search engines to allow them an opportunity to categorize and define your page, and the body section is written for your viewers , giving them a visual interpretation of your information. Search engines use the visual interpretation and the information in the head section to compile a profile of your page which they will match to a users search through a SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) and display what the search engine perceives to be the closest match of the the search request and all indexed pages in the SERP's (Search Engine Results pages)
 

OFF-PAGE SEO 

Off-page SEO is all the collective marketing of your page by your entire staff, and other sources that are beyond your control and includes but is not limited to the following

•  Internal links with in your web site
• All your social media efforts to get visitors to your web site
• Your blogs and user forums
• Your online marketing with paid adds
• Your link building strategies
• the registration of your web site with search engines and related platforms
• your public relations marketing and related online strategies
• What others have to say about your pages in their respective online platforms which include but is not limited to
• their web sites
• their blogs
• their social media platforms
• peer review sites
• product / services review sites
• news papers online pages
• radio stations online pages
•  your customers discussing your products in their social media post

 The first and most important aspect of SEO is the least understood, and least used component of in-page SEO which is the meta tags in the <head> section of your page. The META TAGS within the head section of your page are used by search engines to evaluate the content of your page and establish a context for the information within the body section of the page. Most end users do not even know that there is a <head> section of your page, and  many people ignore this with some SEO PRACTITIONERS even saying SEO is DEAD, because they have heard that the KEYWORD META TAG is not used in page rank scores.

When doing your off page SEO you need to use the information that your in-page SEO technical team used when  creating the <head> section of your page as well as the <body> section content in meaningful and constructive ways.  This is actualy a lot simpler than it sounds, and you can get the desired information from a number of sources, with the easiest being to use your browsers functionality to see the page source, and copying the contents of the head section to a text document for you to read and understand at your leisure.  

Another good source of this information is your SEO team who will be able to also give you a brief on the aims, objectives, purpose and intent of the page, which will help you in the copy writing of your off page SEO and all related social media posts. When doing any off page SEO be sure to  include the full URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or web address of the page you are marketing, to ensure that search engines give the correct page the SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) that is accrued by your off page SEO efforts.

Remember FUFISM  - (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) and ensure that all the role players who are involved in your SEO work together as a unified team with a single goal in mind. That goal should be to increase the return on investment in your web site through the acquisition of targeted visitors to your web site who are qualified through your use of properly targeted SEO which will ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market group and not by the wrong target market groups.

To ensure that your team gets the best results from your off page SEO  you will need to employ the FUFISM philosophy  The FUFISM philosophy is really quite simple and easy to manage, as all your team will be on the same page, and share many marketing insights that would otherwise be kept as departmental secrets . Once you employ the FUFISM philosophy there will be no infighting between departments to see who gets the lions share of the marketing budget and many research areas will  be handled differently, as the information gathered will be shared across departments and not duplicated unnecessarily as they would be when departments are competing against each other for a share of the marketing budget.