Putting Images to Work for You
Let’s start off with a quick compare and contrast, looking quickly at two sites, then hopping back here. Just scroll down and view each site as a whole, without getting too bogged in details or clicking links or anything like that.
If you had to make a quick, snap judgment, it’d probably be that the Patio to Pool site looks much better, slicker, and more engaging, while the Cisco site looks kind of crappy and cluttered. And you’d be exactly right, on all accounts, but one of the key reasons is a bit subtle.
I don’t have the design vocabulary to explain it well, but the use of images in the posts on the Patio to Pool site really adds a lot of oomph. Not only does it illuminate and illustrate the topic of each post, but it serves as a visual break, giving your eyes a rest from what would otherwise be a sea of text.
Not so much with the Cisco site, as it’s a bit difficult to focus on things, and the text seems overwhelming. As far as actual word count, the posts on both sites are generally in the same neighborhood, as far as length. But something as simple as inserting images really gives the Patio to Pool site some extra pop, making it look much more inviting and professional looking.
Another subtle bonus from including images in your content is that you can also put them to use for you as far as SEO goes, by using descriptive, targeted alt tags. If you mouse over the images on the Patio to Pool site, you’ll see a title like “Samsonite patio furniture” pop up. Search engines do, to greater and lesser extents, take image alt text into account when ranking pages, so adding images (with targeted alt tags that reinforce the title of the post and the keywords you’re pursuing) can actually give you a boost in search engine results. Usually not a huge one, but every little bit helps.
If you’re building affiliate sites for products, including images is pretty much a no-brainer, if they’re readily available. People love to see the actual products, so including product images will let you kill all sorts of birds with one stones.
Notice, though, the caveat that I added, which was “if they’re readily available”. That’s the only downside to including images, which is that they not only take some work to include in your content, but they’re not always easily found.
Some affiliate programs give you the tools to quickly find and locate images in their catalog (and link them to specific products), while others don’t, forcing you to do the legwork of finding the images that correspond to specific products, etc. Some programs host the images for you while others require you to serve them yourself. It varies pretty widely from program to program, with no real standard.
Like anything, you have to weigh how much time you’re spending in including images, as far as how valuable it might be to your site. In some areas, it’s simply not necessary, and you’ll do fine with very few images, while in others it’s more necessary.
If the affiliate program you’re working with makes it very easy to add images, it’s almost always good to do so, as they really do make your site more atractive. If it’s difficult to add images and doing so adds many hours to creating a site, well, that’s when you have to make a decision, as to whether you’ll likely get more ROI out of having images on pages or on spending your time creating more content.
Putting Images to Work for You and related information can be found in Getting Started, SEO, Search Engines