How to Do Image SEO for Hotel Websites? [10 Legit Strategies]

When it comes to a hotel website, many hoteliers don’t give enough weightage to image SEO. And I understand why. After all, I was one of them too.

During my initial days as a blogger for the hospitality industry, I used to add some of the intriguing images on my blogs and spend hours editing those.

However, things weren’t working out the way I wanted. There was something amiss!

My focus was only on the way the image looked and never on the optimisation of the images for SEO. 

(Well, I didn’t have much knowledge about image SEO either.)

And to be brutally honest, I still regret it! 

So, I have taken it upon myself to help hoteliers understand how to make images SEO friendly and increase hotel website ranking.

Why Content Needs Amazing Images?

Before we talk about how to optimize images for SEO, let me address this sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

People love visuals. Period. 

They are easier to digest and remember

According to a source, since 2007, there’s a 9900 percent increase in the use of visualized information. 

That’s not all.

• Research by Dr. Richard Felder in the 1980s suggests that the proportion of visual learners is significantly higher compared to the other learning styles.
• Another research shows that people can remember more than 2,000 pictures with at least 90% accuracy.

#FunFact

And let’s remember the basics we were taught as kids: 

A picture is worth a thousand words.

So, if you have been turning a blind eye to images, it’s time to rectify that. Try to make your content as intriguing as possible with images, videos, embedded social media posts etc.

But, is that enough?

Like I said in the beginning, you need SEO. It always plays a crucial role here. 

And this brings me to the next point.

What is Image SEO?

I am sure you know what is SEO and its importance in a hotel website. If not, then we have a detailed blog on it. You can read it here: SEO for hotel websites.

In terms of website image SEO, it is the process of optimising the readability, indexability, and quality of images on a website or a webpage. It provides search engine crawlers with more information about the image and helps in ranking the content higher. 

But, is Image SEO Really Important for a Hotel Website?

The answer is an absolute YES!

There was a time when people could quickly download an original image from search results without visiting the host webpage. But in February 2018, Google removed the “View Image” button from its image search results. Now, every time you click on an image on Google image search, it redirects you to the corresponding website.

And this is where image SEO comes into the picture. The better you optimise your graphics on your hotel website, the more chances you have of ranking higher.

If you have been thinking that optimizing website content for SEO is enough, then it’s time to change that mindset. The algorithms keep changing and to stay competitive, you and your hotel have to keep abreast of all the latest updates.

10 Image SEO Tips for Hotel Website

Hotel websites aren’t like every other website. It contains different sorts of content. Therefore, optimising image SEO for a hotel website involves certain parameters that need to be addressed. 

In this section, I will talk about all the crucial steps to optimise your SEO of images to help your hotel website rank higher.

#1 Use the most relevant image

When you are adding an image to content, make sure it aligns with the message. DO NOT just randomly pick an image and add.

For example: If you're writing about hotel sales, try to find an image that shows the exact thing (or something close to it). You don’t want to put an image of a ‘shopkeeper selling something’.  

If you have a strong hand on editing tools like Adobe Photoshop or Canva, you can also create one. Or else, you can always pick up something from sites like Unsplash, Pixabay, or Pexels.

#ProTip: If you’re picking images from Google, make sure there are no copyright issues.

Here’s how you can find free-to-use & free-to-edit images on Google:

• Go to Google and search for the image
• Head to the Images section
• Click on “Tools” 
• When the filter menu expands, you’ll see “Usage Rights”
• Select “Creative Commons” or “Commercial Use” according to your preference

#2 Use the highest quality possible

Hotel websites need high-quality images that intrigue people to book a stay. 

But when I say ‘high quality’, I don’t mean a 500 MB image (I know that’s a humongous number. Just get the joke!). We will talk about the image size in the next point.

What I mean is that the image should look GREAT. It shouldn’t be grainy or blurred or pixelated.

Here’s an example:

#3 Choose the right format

Adding images is undoubtedly a simple job, but you must know that there are some factors you must consider. One of them is picking the right format.

Again, I know there are a lot of different formats available, but JPEG, PNG and WebP are the most common and widely used ones.

Which one to choose?  

Personally, I always go with the PNG format. The main reason behind it is that PNG doesn’t lose detail and quality after image compression.

#4 Reduce or compress images for better load time

One of the most important factors to keep in mind is the size of your hotel website images. Because it impacts the website’s load time significantly. The bigger the image, the more time it will take to load.

If you want to save some more milliseconds of load time, compress the images before uploading them.

Tools you can use to compress images for website:

• Optimizilla
• JPEG Optimiser
• TinyPNG
• Kraken.io
• CompressNow
• Optimole

If you are wondering whether it would make a good impact, here are some stats:

Page load time with original images – 5.882 seconds

Page load time with the best-optimized images – 2.369 seconds

Search Engine Land

#5 Make your images mobile-friendly

Imagine you add an image of 1080 px width to your blog. But when someone opens that blog on their phone that can only display a 420 px width, the image wouldn’t look that great.

Now, the concern here is, even though the image would look as good at 420 px, it would take time to load the original image (which is 1080 px).

Getting the point? The load time on mobile phones increases.  

This is where <img srcset> comes into the picture. Using the srcset html tag, you can allow your image to load on mobile phones with different screen sizes.

Further, if you’re using WordPress, it creates smaller versions of the images when you upload them. You can find them in the media settings. 

#6 Choose the right filename

This tip is a gem when it comes to image SEO.

Once you figure out all your best keywords for hotel website SEO and use them in your headline, meta title & description, and URL, copy and paste it to your image file name as well.

Yes, it is that simple!

However, make sure your keyword or key phrase goes hand-in-hand with the image.

Here’s how you rename the image file:

• You can rename it directly on your computer. Once you download the image or create one, just right-click on it and rename it.
• Rename it while downloading. Just right-click, hit ‘save image as’, select the location, name it and save.
• Or, you can rename it in the content management system (CMS) after uploading.

Here’s an example from WordPress:

#7 Write SEO-friendly alt text

Alt text (which is also known as alt tag or alt description) is basically the text that appears in place of an image if it fails to load. It also helps screen readers for blind and vision-impaired folks to describe the image.

Not to mention, the alt text is one of the factors that allow search engines to understand what the image is about. 

So, make sure you do proper alt tag optimization. Just like the image file name, the focus keyword or key phrase is added in the alt text.

Word to the wise: While you are renaming the image and adding alt text, do not forget to add a caption and description to the image.

#8 Add image structured data

If you don’t know what is structured data, it is a format to mark up the information about a web page. It helps search engines like Google understand what your content is about. 

For example, structure data will tell Google that your content is about your hotel or hotel industry, in general. And that increases the chances of your content showing up for appropriate search queries.

Further, when you add structured data to your hotel website images, the chances of them ranking for the correct searches also spikes up.

HubSpot has an in-depth blog on structured data. You can read it and learn how to use structured data to optimize and organize your website.

#9 Use XML image sitemap

An XML image sitemap is basically a list of your website’s images. The purpose of this sitemap is that it increases the possibility of getting ranked in Google image search.

Simply put, adding images to a sitemap helps search engines like Google discover images much more efficiently.

So, if you want to conveniently share information with search engines, an XML image sitemap should be on your list.

#10 Use Images CDN

While we have covered almost all the important aspects of image SEO, there’s one more thing that makes a great impact — the image content delivery network (CDN).

An image CDN helps in decreasing its payload and delivering tailored images to different requesting devices. Not to mention, it also enhances the page load time for a better user experience and to increase SEO ranking.

How to check image SEO performance?

Now that you have learned how to optimize hotel website images, I am sure you would also want to see whether it is working out.

So, here are some basic things you can do:

• List out all the keywords that you have added to your images.
• One by one, search for all the keywords in Google image search.
• If any of your images show up on Google image SERP, that means they are ranking.
• Also, search for other keywords from your other blogs, if they show up then well and good. Or else you can also optimise them to rank higher.
• Check and compare your website’s load time after compressing the images.
• Open all the blogs on other devices to check if the images are fitting well on the screen.

FAQs