Text Links versus Image Links - Which Is Better?

Many sites request an image when they set up a link for you. This is particularly true for chamber sites or sites that you sponsor. This may look attractive but is not best practice when it comes to getting links that will help your position in the search engines. Push your site up in search engine position with keyword text links! The problem is that the search engines cannot read the text that is in the image. They can see the that there is an image file present but have no idea of what the image is about or if there is any text associated with the image. Humans viewing the image can see and understand any text that is in the image but the search engines do not have a clue. Therefore, the best kind of link to get credit not only for the link but also for the keyword-rich text is to make the link with keyword text. When you think about it this makes great sense. Search engine spiders are programs that search the Internet for websites. They have been designed to read the code of a site but most importantly they have been designed to read the text of a site. If your links are made with text you are making it easy for the search engine spiders to understand.

A search engine spider can also understand the file name of an image. That is why in higher level search engine optimization projects a site designer / SEO expert will name the images using keyword phrases. The website designer that uses generic image names such as image 1, header image or logo is not setting up the site so that the images will enhance the search engine position of the website.

Use keyword-rich text links!

Advice:

1. Request text links instead of image links when requesting a back link. Let the website owner of they site you are requesting the link from know the exact text that should be used to make the link.
2. If you do use an image as a link because it is compelling to humans and they will be more likely to click on the link if it is an image then name the image an important keyword phrase. For example if you wanted to be found for real estate in Park City, Utah you could name the image real_estate_park_city.jpg. An image link with this file name will help your website move up in position.
3. This article is about whether you should use an image or text when requesting a back-link to your site and we strongly favor text links. However, we realize that images are important so consider redoing the image naming for the images on your website. This will help your search engine position.

Next Step:

If you would like Website Link Tactics to help you to get links into your website that are keyword-based and embedded in paragraphs with text related to your business then give us a call.

We will be happy to discuss how linking can help boost up your position in the search engines and help to drive targeted traffic to your website.

Also, you can simply fill out the form on our Inquiry Page and we will get back to you shortly.

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