How Images Can Enhance Your SEO - Proven Results

Today I thought I would conduct some research on how one of my sites is performing in search results and I was very pleasantly surprised at the result.

I have not checked this site for a while but I wanted to do an incognito check on some keywords. Not this is quite a niche site as it is aimed at Drama Teachers so the audience if relatively small compared to some larger niches.

In the summer, I started to create a series of posts about drama techniques that teachers can use in the classroom, and each post has AI-derived images of students demonstrating the technique, as well as a free downloadable infographic telling teachers what the the technique is, how it can be used and some ideas for extended activities. I have a list of at least 20 planned but have 5 on the site at the moment which are finished.

The results

So I was extremely pleased to see that all of the 4 keywords I tested, have appeared on the first page of both Bing and Yahoo searches in a good position. These were tested in an incognito window and I've shown some of the results below. I'm not sure if I really always trust the incognito window but I don't have another computer to use so I have to go with what they say. Google was less kind in all cases.

However, what I was very excited to see was that, in all 4 cases, there were images from my site being featured on both the Bing and Yahoo pages too, and I may be a bit biased in saying so, but these all stood out to me as being quality images.

You can see that I have circled the ranking and images that are from my site in the results below.

Keyword 1 - thought in the head drama

Keyword 2 - Freeze Frame

Keyword 3 - Hot seating drama

Keyword 4 - Role on the wall drama

For this, I thought I would click on the IMAGES tab, and this is what I got: The highlighted yellow ones are from my site.

Key takeaways

For me, it was surprising and exciting to see that not only were the posts ranking well, but that the images were being shown too. Most of these images were done prior to the WA launch of Image Studio so I used ChatGPT to create them and then edited them in Canva. All of the infographics were done in Canva and I have created a template so that they all look the same.

So, what seems to be working is:

1. Having good quality, relevant images which include the name of the keyword in the alt text and the file name
2. Using AI-derived images that summarise key points
3. Using AI-derived images to show examples of the techniques I'm talking about

They say, "A picture paints 1000 words", and in these cases, they seem to be helping drive traffic to my site. I will still have to work on the Google ranking, but I'm happy that at least Bing and Yahoo seem to be taking more notice of the sites.

With the addition of WA's Image Studio, creating images that can enhance your website articles AND improve your SEO is now easier than ever.

I'm going to get the other 15 techniques done now as soon as I can, because these appear to be a very useful addition.

All the best with your own discoveries. I hope this will help in some way, and I recommend that you do your own research to check where your images are ranking.

Gail