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SEO Tips for Images: Real Estate Edition

July 22 2021

realtyna seo tips images

The visual side of the real estate website is as important as the written text. Real estate professionals should know this better than anyone. The listing images are practically the bread and butter of real estate pros. So, how can you improve these images' SEO?

Compressing Equals Better Speed

Well, first of all, don't forget to compress the images. The bigger the size of the image file is, the slower the page loading time will be. Compressing helps reduce the file size.

Image Backgrounds

Another important tip that not many realize is the background of the images. Images with a clear background have a bigger size, compared to the blurred background images. Remember, the smaller the file size is, the better the page loading time will be.

Original Images for Your Real Estate Website

Imagine you're writing a blog and you need a good image representing the main idea. What are you going to do in this case? Most probably, you will check royalty free stock images. But remember, too many websites use the same generic stock images. Imagine finding out that your real estate website has the same stock images as, for example, an online gambling company.

Original content is what Google the algorithm values, and visual media is no exception. Nothing will top original content being placed on your real estate website.

File Name

This is a pretty simple but often overlooked SEO tip — creating a unique file name. Google crawlers recognize what the image is about specifically by checking the file name. That's why customizing file names by adding a keyword-rich phrase is what will make your visual content stand out.

Alt Text of the Real Estate Images

Both the description and alt text serve a very important role in the image ranking process. Alt text is an alternative way for search engines to recognize the image in instances when browsers can't properly render them. Basically, when the browser can't load the image, the alt tag will show up instead, showcasing the subject matter of the image.

Creating SEO friendly alt texts will certainly help Google to recognize the images better.

Description for Real Estate Images

What about description? You probably heard about ADA, also known as the Americans with Disabilities Act, which ensures the accessibility of websites. One of the key points is the accessibility of the visual content. Often, people with disabilities use screen readers to access content. Screen readers check the description of the visual content to recognize what the content is about.

With the more and more demands on the accessibility of websites, it's important to pay attention to descriptions as well.

File Path

We already discussed the importance of the file name in the image ranking process. It turns out that in addition to the file name, Google checks the file path of the content. What is a file path? File path is the location or address of the content.

There is two kind of paths:

  1. Absolute File Path - indicates the full URL of a content
    For example: <img src="https://www.realtyna.com/images/picture.jpg" alt="Real estate agents">
  2. Relative File Path - indicates file path relevant to this specific page
    For example: <img src="/images/picture.jpg" alt="Real estate agents">

Google recommends making the file path more distinguishable. For example, as a real estate agent, you probably are working with many property types, which means you can structure your folders based on property type.

For example: <img src="https://www.website.com/townhouses/picture.jpg" alt="Villa for sale">

This is just a small example of how you can arrange folders on your website. Keep in mind that these structures are customizable based on your needs.

To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.