In this section, I want to explain to you why most website owners do not understand the importance of pictures and how you can make a few simple changes that will help you achieve a top ranking in the search engines.  My book Easywebsite101 covers everything in much more detail and gives you step-by-step instructions on how to actually edit your pictures.

 Don't just use your pictures to display your products! Use them as a powerful SEO tool!

• Why are the pictures so important?
  Fact:  You obviously need to add pictures to your website so that your clients can see the products and/or services you are offering.  However, you also  need to make sure that the pictures are proper optimized for the search engines, so that they can understand them, which will help your website get a higher ranking in the search engines.
   

• Example of how optimized pictures can help a website get a high ranking in the search engines.
  Fact:  I'm going to use my friend's website to show you how important pictures can be.
  Go to Bing and search for "ice hockey training".  Dave's ice hockey website Dphockey.com will probably rank in the top 5, which in itself is obviously great.  Now switch to the image results in Bing, which has become very popular with a lot of users, and you will often find pictures of Dphockey.com in the first page of the results.  Even though there are typically millions of search results and thousands of image results, his website ranks at or near the top for both.
  
  By optimizing the pictures and applying them properly, his website is not only more relevant for the keywords that matter most to Dave, but his images also rank high in the image search results.  I have seen the same results in my own website and that of others that have used my book.
   

• The search engines can see my pictures and know what they are about.
  Fact:  WRONG!!!
  Search engines use programs called "Spiders" that look at all of the web pages they find and categorize their contents.  While you and I can see a picture and know what it represents, the spiders only see a file of a certain size along with the name and location.
   

• Optimizing website images is impossible for beginners and require the help of professionals.
  Fact:  Not so!!  How hard is it to take a picture and rename it after the contents of the page that it is in.  For example, when my friend optimized his ice hockey website, he simple renamed the pictures to include the keywords that matter most to him.
   

• Lots of additional tips.
  Fact:  I have added detailed information in my manual that not only explains what you need to do, but more importantly how to do it.  Assuming that you are a beginner or run a small website, I have created simple step by step instructions that tell you exactly what to do, which button to press, and just as importantly, what not to do.