Content vs Graphics - What's More Important?

The last thing you want is to spend a lot of time creating the perfect content for your website only to discover that it would have been more efficient for you to have substituted graphics wherever possible. Here's how to determine whether content or graphics should be king on your website, and how to optimize your use of graphics.

1. Are you building a digital portfolio? If you're building an image-rich website, such as an art portfolio, free photo website, or are using a website builder to create a free wedding website, then you might find that optimizing your graphics is the best way forward. Most effective content optimization requires at least 500 words, which might ruin the aesthetics of your graphic site. While you can certainly optimize content with fewer words, you won't have the same impact. Instead, consider leaving your website lean on content, but rich in image optimization (see below for tips).
2. Are you creating a business website that sells physical products? Business or ecommerce websites tend to include more graphics, particularly if their products are attractive or visually unique. As with digital portfolios, there's no need to shoehorn content in to optimize; you can achieve similar results by optimizing your many product pictures.
3. Do you run a website where your client base is likely to use image searches? This may include celebrity watcher websites, those that post movie or music reviews, and gossip blogs. While each of these websites will have a fair amount of content, you will benefit from letting your pictures speak for you and keeping the content to a biting minimum.

How to optimize your graphics

1. Use the "alt" attribute. This feature allows you to select what text is displayed should your image fail to load. This failure might be due to visitors' personal settings, their web browsers, or because they're using screen readers. Using keywords (when appropriate) in your alt tags will help optimize your website: and will make it easier for image searches to find your graphics.
2. Take care when naming your graphic. Too many people using website builders only consider their own needs when naming graphics, rather than those of their users: or Google. If you have a well-organized file structure, for example, the graphic name "Bob1" might tell you that it's a picture of Bob Dylan performing at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn and that it's early in the set: it won't, however, tell Google that. Your graphic name should be as descriptive as possible, while remaining brief, and if applicable, using keywords. This will boost your search engine ranking, and make it easier for users to know what they're downloading (assuming you've enabled that feature on your website).
3. If in-keeping with the aesthetics of your website, include content directly surrounding the graphic. For example, if you include a picture of Arcade Fire on your music website, you may want a small-font caption reading, "Arcade Fire at the Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan." Be careful, however, that your alt tag does not mirror your caption: otherwise, the caption will render your alt tag irrelevant, and it may raise a flag for Google.

Ultimately, most people using free website builders will find that content is the best way to optimize; the number of graphic-dependent websites is still relatively small, though growing. However, all webmasters can benefit from optimizing the images they choose to use