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<\/p>\nPhoto by Josh<\/a> (CC by 2.0)<\/a>, modified<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Non-text elements such as images, videos, audio and other types of rich media<\/a> help engage and retain a visitor\u2019s interest. They also raise the quality of your webpage. Search engines are getting better at reading these non-text engagement objects, but it’s the job of SEO to clearly communicate what the content is about.<\/p>\n This lesson focuses on the most frequently used and SEO-significant rich media elements: images, video and audio\u200b. <\/p>\n Content with images performs better than plain text content. Yet a website’s \u200bimages are an area of optimization that businesses frequently ignore.<\/p>\n Check for these essential elements when optimizing images for search:<\/p>\n Image attributes are easy to set in WordPress.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n See our in-depth image SEO<\/a> guide for more recommendations.<\/em><\/p>\n There are many types of images to choose from. A photo <\/strong>grabs a reader’s attention well, especially if it contains people’s faces. Beyond photographs, consider diagrams<\/strong>, artwork<\/strong>, illustrations<\/strong>, charts<\/strong>, graphs<\/strong>, logos<\/strong>, screenshots<\/strong>, memes <\/strong>\u2014 basically, any visual rich media element that communicates your subject matter and engages your user.<\/p>\n Another type of image that’s particularly popular (and gets reshared a lot) is the infographic<\/strong>. Infographics are relatively easy to build \u2014 you can find data through research (citing your sources, of course), and then put it together using one of the many free infographic tools available online. As a segue to our next section on video optimization, here’s an example infographic we made using Piktochart:<\/p>\n As the “Why Use Video?” infographic above explains, video is a key factor in SEO. Bruce Clay considers it to be the most important engagement element<\/em> to have in your multimedia content arsenal. In fact, Google has a vested interest in video since it owns YouTube, which has become the second most popular search engine on the web.<\/p>\n Making videos doesn’t require a huge investment in equipment and software, or even a lot of tech savvy anymore. Some simple low-end options include smartphone videos, screen-capture videos, and live video conferences, \u200bin which multiple participants \u200bhave a conversation from remote locations, filmed with their laptop mics and cameras, and automatically turned into a video.<\/p>\n Whether your videos are recorded with your webcam or high-end productions, you’ll need to follow some SEO tips to help your videos rank better in search:<\/p>\n Audio is a great way to add value to your existing content while enhancing the user experience.<\/p>\n Music sites are not the only ones that can offer quality audio files for visitors to listen to. \u200bNon-music sites can find ways to enrich the visitor’s experience using audio. (Note: Let the visitor control whether audio plays, rather than starting the sound automatically, as a courtesy.)<\/p>\n A podcast <\/strong>is a digital audio file that can be downloaded or streamed from the web. Widespread <\/span>i<\/span>nternet access in cars and phones has enabled podcasts to resurge as a popular way to consume content. <\/span>Millions of people listen to podcasts every day to learn new skills, get news and entertainment, or hear an audio book \u2014 among many other reasons to listen to podcasts.<\/p>\n Consider hosting a podcast if you have lessons, news recaps, interviews, or some other type of audio content that would be interesting and useful for your audience to digest on a regular basis.<\/p>\n Here are a few tips for incorporating audio files<\/strong> (podcasts, music or other) as multimedia content on your site:<\/p>\nImage Optimization Best Practices for SEO<\/h2>\n
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\n SEO Tip:<\/em> With linked images, search engines treat the alt attribute as the link anchor text.<\/li>\n
\n SEO Tips:<\/em> Make the browser’s job of displaying your images easier. Resize each image before uploading it to your website, and specify height and width attributes in the image tag.<\/li>\nImage Types: The Choice is Yours<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nVideo Optimization Best Practices for SEO<\/h2>\n
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Audio and Podcast Optimization for SEO<\/h2>\n
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