Using Images Instead of Text to Control Keywords on Page
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We have recently updated a key page on our website. It is a template page that is used many times to display search results. The words "price", "revenue", and "cash flow", "not disclosed" are used for each listing on the page -- to minimize their impact on keyword density on the page we used images for these words. Here you can see some examples:
- http://www.businessbroker.net/State/Florida-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx
- http://www.businessbroker.net/City/Los Angeles-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx
- http://www.businessbroker.net/Industry/Auto_Car_Wash-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx
You will note these words on this page are images and not regular text.
We are certainly not doing this to "dupe" the visitors or Google -- we just want to ensure that each page has keywords pertinent to what the page is about.
Bottom line question -- is this an OK practice? Are we running any risk with Google by doing this? I'm particularly nervous these days with all of the Google changes.
Your thoughts and guidance on this issue would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
- MWM
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Hi Khem - Thank-you for your response, I appreciate it. - Matt M
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Hi Cyrus - I appreciate the response - makes good sense. We will be doing a comprehensive review of our title tags and making necessary adjustments so they don't appear "spammy" -- good suggestion! Thanks again, appreciate it. - Matt M
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Hi MWM,
It's completely natural for websites to have certain words repeating over and over. Consider the typical listing page for Amazon - (Price, reviews, etc) Google encounters this all the time and it's natural to assume these words don't really play into ranking considerations. So I honestly don't see anything to gain by adding images.
That said, I doubt the images hurt you very much... I simply don't believe they are worth the effort.
On another note, you might want to take a look at your title tags. We've seen Google get more aggressive about cracking down on keyword stuffed title tags. Repeating your keywords more than once or twice is a definite red flag. For example, I might take this:
"Florida Business for Sale Ads - Florida Businesses for Sale & Business Brokers - Sell a Business on Business Broker"
and turn it into
"Florida Business for Sale Ads - Buy & Sell at BusinessBroker.net"
...needs a little refining, but you get the idea. Best of luck!
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Specifically in your case, these things appear be genuine so you may use either image or text. Google will not harm your website
But make sure to use meaningful and informative description for all your listing instead of focusing on keywords but that doesn't mean that you can't use keywords if required
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I believe the following article can answer all your queries, which you even have not asked.
From my side, as long as the words/keywords are used genuinely, you really need not to worry about that. There is no such think called Keyword Density, Reciprocal links as long as they are natural and genuine.
Read more: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-myths-that-scare-seos-but-shouldnt-whiteboard-friday
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