In 2025, I’m seeing more smart marketers make a shift from thinking about their site as a blog or as a website to thinking about their site as a content hub.
What’s the difference? Marketing has changed. Today, content marketing is all about creating high-quality, engaging content that will attract an audience — and content hubs are how smart marketers do it.
1. Optimize Your Website’s Page Load Time
Page load time is the time it takes for a web page to load its content.
If your page load time is too slow, it can negatively impact your website’s search ranking. That’s because search engines want to deliver the best possible experience to their users, and a slow website doesn’t provide that.
In fact, Google has stated that page load time is a ranking factor. So, optimizing your website’s page load time is a must if you want to improve your website’s visibility in search results and drive more traffic to your website. This is especially crucial for websites that need improvement, as slow-loading pages can drive visitors away before they even see your content.
There are a few different ways you can optimize your website’s page load time, such as:
• Compressing images and videos
• Minimizing the number of HTTP requests
• Using browser caching
• Minimizing the number of plugins and widgets on your website
• Using a content delivery network (CDN)
2. Use High-Quality Visual Content
The quality of your visual content is incredibly important. After all, you wouldn’t want to see a pixelated image in your Google search results, would you?
High-quality visual content can help you make a great first impression and provide value to your audience. It can also help you stand out from the competition.
When creating visual content, be sure to use high-quality images and videos. If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional photographer or videographer, you can use free stock photo sites like Unsplash or Pexels, a certificate maker like Certifier, or even AI tools like Typeface’s AI Visual Inspiration Studio. Additionally, if your business relies on UGC eCommerce, where customers generate and share product images, encourage them to upload high-resolution content to maintain a strong visual appeal and enhance trust among potential buyers.
3. Create an Image Sitemap
Just like with traditional written content, you can also create an image sitemap to help search engines find and index your images.
An image sitemap is a file that lists all of the images on your website, along with some additional information about each image, such as its URL, title, and caption.
You can then submit this file to search engines, which will help them find and index all of the images on your site.
4. Use Descriptive File Names
The file name of your image is another way to provide context to search engines about what the image is about.
When you download an image from a stock photo site, the file name is likely a string of numbers and letters. Before you upload it to your website, make sure to rename the file to something descriptive of the image.
For example, if your image is a photo of a woman looking at her phone, you could name the file “woman-looking-at-phone.jpg”. This is a simple but effective way to add context to your image and improve its SEO.
5. Optimize the Alt Text for Images
Alt text is a short description of an image that is read by search engines to understand the image and the context of the content that it’s in.
Alt text is also used to describe the image to users who are unable to see the image, such as those using a screen reader due to a visual impairment.
Use the alt text to accurately describe the image. Be sure to include your target keyword, if it makes sense to do so. If you’re not sure what to write, ask yourself how you would describe the image to someone who can’t see it.
6. Utilize Image Title Attributes
Image title attributes are the words that pop up when you hover over an image. This is a small but mighty piece of your image SEO strategy.
Title attributes don’t directly impact your rankings, but they do give you a chance to include an extra keyword or two. This can help you improve your keyword relevancy and increase your chances of showing up in image searches.
To add a title attribute to your image, simply click on your image in your CMS and add your title attribute in the appropriate field.
7. Use Appropriate Image Sizes
The size of your image file can have a big impact on the speed of your website. The larger the file, the longer it will take to load. A slow website can hurt your SEO and your user experience.
It’s important to use the right image size for your website. If you’re using a large image on a small section of your website, you’re using more data than you need to. On the other hand, if you’re using a small image on a large section of your website, your image will look pixelated.
Choose the right image size for your website and use an image compression tool to make sure your file size is as small as possible.
8. Host Images on Your Own Domain
Hosting your images on a third-party platform like Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram means that those platforms are getting the SEO credit for your images.
Instead, you should host your images on your own domain or a subdomain.
This is also a good way to optimize the speed of your website because it reduces the number of HTTP requests to other servers.
9. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers dispersed across the globe. It allows you to store your visual content on multiple servers, making it easy for users to access your content no matter where they are located.
CDNs can help improve the speed and performance of your website. This is important because page load speed is a ranking factor for Google. If your website is slow, it can hurt your SEO.
By using a CDN, you can ensure that your visual content loads quickly and is accessible to users no matter where they are located. This can help improve your website’s performance and SEO.
10. Add an Image Caption
Image captions are the most-read text on a web page. If you want to make sure that people see your image caption, place it directly beneath the image.
Image captions are also a great place to add a little more context to your image. You can use the caption to describe what’s happening in the image, or to provide a little more information about the topic you’re discussing.
Just make sure that your image caption is relevant to the image and the content on the page. Don’t try to stuff your captions with keywords, and don’t use captions as an excuse to ramble on about unrelated topics.
11. Use Structured Data
Structured data is a way of adding more context to your images and other content on your website.
In the case of images, you can use structured data to add things like image alt text, image title, and image description.
This can be a great way to give search engines more information about your visual content and help them understand what it’s about.
There are a few different ways to add structured data to your visual content, but one of the best is to use JSON-LD.
This is a type of structured data that’s easy to add to your website and can help you give search engines more information about your visual content.
Conclusion
I hope you found these tips helpful! Creating visual content is a great way to drive more traffic to your website and increase brand awareness.