This only leaves content creators with one option and that’s to create the most creative and engaging content that confirms Google’s algorithm, as well as, is able to generate audiences’ interest.
Now, back in the days, text-based content was the most definite way to generate traffic over search engines (leave no doubt it still remains one of the most effective ways to gain traction), however, the world wide web is fast transitioning into a visual library, where users are more attracted to visual content.
Therefore, it’s a necessity for digital marketers to up their search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.
These days, creating high-quality keyword-optimized text content is no longer enough to generate users’ interest, rather, it’s important to generate informative and engaging visual content (videos, graphics, infographics, etc.) to be able to rank higher in search engines and gain users’ interests.
Below, we have come up with effective visual SEO strategies that will help you to boost your Google Rank and generate more users’ interests.
5 Ways Visual Content Can Boost Your Google Rank
1- Create Appealing Visual Stories
If you are able to create high-quality content that is able to gain traction organically among users, you won’t have to worry much about the algorithm updates from Google, Bing or other search engines. That’s because attracting a large number of users will automatically help you to reach the top ranking on Google and other search engines.
As a general rule of the industry, if you are able to offer your users the content which they are looking for, you will eventually get higher traffic and subsequently better ranking in search engines.
Now, you may ask about the right type of content to gain traction from the users, right?
While almost all types of content (blogs, videos, graphics, infographics, etc.) contribute to traffic generation, in today’s digital era, visual storytelling is the ultimate king and there’s a good reason for it.
According to statistics, visitors spend around 5 seconds to determine if they want to continue navigating the website or switch to another site. And when it’s mere 5 seconds, websites need to make a strong first impression that can stun and capture visitors’ attention and make them stay on the website.
Do you think that the visitor would be able to read the content to determine the authenticity of the website in these 5 seconds? I don’t think so. Instead, it’s the images and visual elements that would capture the visitors’ attention in these 5 seconds.
Besides, the human brain is wired to absorb images faster and better, that’s because over 90% of our brain’s grey matter is reserved for the processes of visuals – which makes visual elements a strong contender to communicate effectively with the visitors.
Here are some stats that establishes the dominance and authority of visual elements as an effective rank boosting strategy on Google:
- Social media posts with relevant and attractive images tend to attract 180% more engagement
- Blogs and articles with multiple images get 90% more views than those without any images
- Blogs with embedded videos gain up to 300% more inbound links
- Videos have over 50% higher chances to get first-page ranking as compared to other content
Now, the key here is to create an engaging visual story, which isn’t a simple task to say the least. The visual content (graphics, video or infographics) needs to have all the elements (relevance, information, aesthetics) covered to be able to gain traction and boost SEO rankings.
For instance, the video content for an SEO agency Dubai needs to deliver the right balance of information about the local market, effective SEO strategies, as well as, keep things engaging to be able to generate traffic and shares. Fortunately, there are a variety of online resources available that can help you progress the art of storytelling and come up with strong user-oriented infographics, videos, and content.
2- Encourage Social Sharing
The rise of social media saw yet another dramatic transformation of digital marketing. Social platforms, in essence, redefine the way brands communicate with their customers and has since become one of the most effective platforms to attract, and engage customers. Customers today like to follow and share visual stories of brands they like, giving an unprecedented opportunity for brands to leverage passive marketing through visual stories.
While social media posts may not directly influence the SEO rankings for brands, they nonetheless have massive indirect influence over the Google rankings. In fact, while Google denies the usefulness of social sharing for ranking, there is strong evidence that it doesn’t just help create strong brand awareness, but also generates more organic traffic for the websites.
The more high-quality visual stories you share on social platforms, the better your chances to gain social shares and subsequent more website traffic, which eventually translates into better ranking opportunities for brands.
Unfortunately, building social media following organically is a slow process and you need consistent quality content to generate substantial following and traction. However, businesses can boost their efforts with paid marketing, which enables highly-targeted marketing bringing in an adrenaline rush of visitors to social pages, which subsequently lands on the website.
Also, with the consistent generation of high-quality visuals and other sharable content, businesses will eventually be able to trigger the spark needed to boost social sharing.
Another way to optimize social posts for reach and sharing is by effective use of hashtags, which make words or phrases searchable over social media platforms, as well as, over Google. For instance, adding hashtag #BestSEOAgencyDubai will make your post appear in top Google ranking for related search queries.
And if you are unsure about the use of right hashtags, all you need to do is to type “#” in the search bars and there will be autosuggestions for the most trending and popular tags. Also, references like hashtags.org and others may be used to know more about the latest hashtags trends around the world.
Interestingly, social sharing doesn’t just have to be initiated from social media pages, but it could be another way around as well. Websites are increasingly adding social sharing buttons for their web content to encourage users to share any content they like directly on their social pages.
3- Sharing visual content as guest posts
Backlinks authority has remained a crucial component of SEO strategies to boost ranking. Google algorithms have always preferred inbound links from high domain authority sites, which is taken as the key to assessing the credibility and expertise of a website.
For those who aren’t much familiar with the working of backlinks, it refers to the links on your site directing to other websites. The shared link could be a blog, social media posts or any other form of content. To state as per Google’s ranking, a large number of high-quality links to your site means that more website owners take your page worthy of mentioning, thus suggesting your site’s credibility and authority but your site’s authority is directly linked to the authority of the site from where the link is generated. Google doesn’t like low-quality links, which in fact could lead to penalties and loss in ranking. Whereas, high-quality links will positively impact your Google ranking.
But how do you generate more backlinks?
Well, there are two ways. Firstly, you can simply keep creating quality content and wait for some blogger or website to notice your content for sharing purposes. Or to be more efficient, you can reach out to bloggers and content publishers with the content sharing request.
Here’re some tips to get guest posts publishing request approved:
- The first obvious step is to create high-quality content that’s optimized for users and make sure to add engaging visual stories for your post. When creating visual stories, you need to understand the classical approach in the use of color, space, fonts, and layout. The use of engaging infographics can significantly improve the approval chances for a guest post.
- Also, when designing graphics or infographics, make sure to choose a fresh and trending topic. Using the same stories in new packaging isn’t the most effective approach to get approval for the guest blog, whereas, creating content for a bizarre topic is even less likely to get approval because no one would be curious enough to search that topic. Alternatively, creating content on a trending topic from a new angle would highly improve the chances of getting users’ attention.
Once you have managed to publish the content, you can request a backlink for the post and voila. You have successfully traversed the path of generating high-quality backlinks for your site. Keep doing it and you will be amazed to see how fast backlinks could boost the site’s Google ranking.
4- Create and share Video Content
There is little doubt about the effectiveness of video content in the digital landscape. The video content accounts for nearly 80% of all the internet traffic with an estimated annual budget of over USD 10 billion, which is increasing each year.
But what makes videos so popular?
Simply because it’s a more engaging and interactive way to communicate the message, impress customers and inspire them to take action. Again, while videos may not directly influence the Google rankings, it does have a great indirect influence over the ranking, just like social posts.
YouTube which is the second-largest search engine and the largest video sharing platform is owned by Google, which means that sharing videos over YouTube automatically improves the overall ranking of websites in Google search engine.
Here are some ways to improve video content ranking over YouTube including:
- Adding keyword labels can optimize videos for search query rankings. The keyword label contains key information regarding the video’s relevance and target audience for search engines. Similarly, Meta tags, meta-descriptions, and titles can be added to videos to make them more searchable for search engine queries.
- Remember, the keywords used to optimize videos for search engines vary significantly from traditional keywords used for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. There are various online tools can be used to choose optimized keywords for YouTube videos
5- Technical Techniques
You can create the most sensational visual stories, share it across all possible platforms and repurpose it for each and every market possible. However, if the Google web crawlers don’t index it, your efforts go all in vain. Yes, you need to optimize the underlying code of the website for search engine crawlers, before you can expect any ranking and traffic for the content.
Apart from optimizing the web page or content for Google Crawlers, there are various other technical techniques that you need to consider when creating SEO strategies to boost Google rank. These may include:
Tagging content with proper and relevant keywords, based on the target audience and competitors’ analysis
Competing for ranking with high-competition keywords may be a too hard nut to crack. Like “SEO agency” is an organic and highly competitive keyword and it would be insane to work out your way towards the top ranking with this keyword. Alternatively, you can go with long-tail keywords like “Best SEO agency in Dubai” or “Local affordable SEO agency in Dubai”, which would have significantly less competition and give you better chances to rank higher for search queries.
Also, you need to consider optimization techniques for YouTube videos, which we explained in the above step. Some more optimization considerations for YouTube videos include:
- Provide at least 200 words description of the video for better understanding of the type and genre of the video, which improves its chances to rank as a “suggested video”
- Include at least five tags for the video, these should include keywords, which will make it easy for YouTube bots, as well as, viewers to find the content
- Use keywords for the video title, it will greatly improve organic search result for the video
- Embed the video for your webpage or blog, to boost YouTube’s ranking. It will also generates a vital backlink for the content
Over to You
Well, there you have some key visual SEO strategies which you can implement to boost your business Google Ranking. Remember, before you can implement these visual SEO strategies, you need to create engaging and interactive visual content and from there on, you can take over your SEO strategy as high as you like.
