In this age of video streaming, podcasts, and messaging truncated social media, your audience now expects some convenience in consuming your content. And why shouldn't they?

While there are technologies available and web development techniques that help you create content in this way, there is no excuse for providing a sub-par online experience.

That's why Kuno Creative's infographic spelling out the 8 digital trends likely to come to market in 2018 doesn't sound too surprising.

Today, I would like to tell you why a strategy of SEO image design will make a lot more sense in 2018 as well as what you can do to ensure your WordPress site is full of high quality visual effects and how to optimize them for search.

Why image optimization for SEO should be a priority in 2018

Obviously, I'm not going to sit here and tell you to download the plugin Yoast SEO and stop optimizing the content. It would be ridiculous. However, I can say two things that you should start doing if you are considering continuing to use WordPress in 2018:

1. Give priority to the inclusion of visual content throughout your web development projects.
2. Optimize all images and video content on your websites in terms of metadata, context and performance.

The importance of image SEO

It's interesting to see how merchants are waiting for any new update of Google's search algorithm, because what makes a good ranking should no longer be a mystery. Google's goal is and always has been to create a search engine that delivers the best results to its users. And the best results tend to come in the form of high quality pages that provide relevant answers for search queries.

Google is doing a great job of explaining exactly how this algorithm works.:

“Just like the correspondence of keywords, algorithms measure how well potential search results give users what they are looking for. When you search for "dogs" you probably don't want a page with the word "dogs" displayed hundreds of times. We try to understand if the page contains an answer to your query and not one that simply repeats your query. The analysis algorithm ensures that the pages include relevant content - such as photos of dogs, videos or even a list of breeds. "

As you can see, the answer no longer rests on a web page that does or does not have a well-composed answer for a search query, but is a web page that does or does not have the type content to respond.

In 2012, Google introduced improvements to Google Image Search. At the time, adjustments to the algorithm favored certain conditions in which the visual interacted with web pages:

1. Web pages that include very high quality and relevant images have received a boost. Even though the page itself was not well received, the images could positively affect the page ranking.
2. High quality web pages that included images also received a boost. In this case, the images get a boost in search of images as long as there is no problem with the resolution or the performance.

As you can see, Google has treated the images and content on the page as if there is a symbiosis between the two. In other words, both were needed to build the ideal landing page.

Since then, Google has tweaked the algorithm, with a focus on high-quality web pages that deliver high-quality visual files.

With Google now claiming to have 64,8% market share in terms of search, it seems that these different changes on its algorithm are bearing fruit. However, research Google Images have dropped in usage quite a bit this year (down to 21,8%), but it's still one of the most popular sites on image search, which is why we need to talk about SEO image from the point of view of your users.

The importance of image SEO from a user perspective

If the inclusion of images and videos in the results ranking is not enough to convince you to strengthen your images in your advertising strategy, SEO, this year, let me share where user searches can lead:

• Web pages that feature images or video receive 94% more impressions than pages that contain text only.
• Google Image Search is not just for navigation. Indeed, 63% of people who look at images using this search function often go to the source pages. 
• More than 75% of professionals in the marketing claim that video content has had a positive impact on their business.
• HubSpot Search revealed that videos are the most consumed type of content, with 55% of all users viewing a video in its entirety and 32% browsing it.

In other words, there is a huge demand for visual content and Google will return it to your website in kind when images and videos are used to improve user experience. 

Think about the most common places where you can include visual content on your WordPress site:

• Header images
• Images in the spotlight
• Sale or information, landing pages
• Video backgrounds
• Product pages with image and video galleries
• Video testimonials
• Video Tutorials
• Content generated by social media users
• Infographic and other images blog-support

By using visuals where they increase the value of the user experience, you'll have a leg up. Ideally, they must exist to reduce the work your users have to do to understand the content of the entire page. A well-chosen image or video can say a lot about the overall article and can get the point across faster.