If A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words. But Are A Thousand Words Worth A Picture?

byWealthyPilot

297 followers

Updated 4 years ago

People Love Pictures

There's an old timeless adage in some SEO circles, that "people love pictures".

So as bloggers, is it possible that we can love pictures "too much"?

Is it possible to become a little overzealous with our use of pictures?

If you use Google's Page Speed Insights tool, and your site scores poorly, then you may need to check to see whether your use of images is the culprit.

For one of my websites, I decided to put a picture in between every paragraph or two. At the time, I thought it would be cute and it would make my site more attractive, and improve the time the user spent on the website.

But it seems to have an adverse effect. Pages are loading slowly.

I haven't touched that site in a couple of months, so now that I am revisiting it again, I am realizing that too many pictures can actually ruin the user experience.

People who Googled some long tail keyword with the intent to solve a problem aren't coming to your website to admire the pictures (unless of course your website is about showcasing a tangible product). They are coming to your site to look for information.

I decided to analyze my page one competition for the same keyword. It seem that most of the pages on page one only have one image... and some don't even have any images at all (apart from advertising banners), and only a couple of them have multiple images!

So How Many Pictures Is Too Many?

So I'm not trying to say that there is a right or wrong answer to the question of how many pictures you should use, as there are just too many other variables that come into play when it comes to SEO, user experience, site speed, and so on and so forth.

But I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that while images are good, they are only good if the following conditions are met:

• The images are compressed
• The images don't clutter your webpage
• You use images sparingly, perhaps to break up the monotony of a lengthy article

I'm even thinking now that the only images that should be on the page should be clickable banner ads... Not just pictures for the sake of it...

I did notice that I am getting search traffic from Google Images though! Not sure if that traffic will convert though...

What Are Your Thoughts On The Use of Images?

I know there clearly isn't a one-size-fits-all right or wrong answer (or is there)?

I would love to hear other WAer's thoughts on the use of images...