We’re in love! We’re in love and we don’t care who knows it. Y’all, we fell for SEO like leaves during Autumn. (lol jk, we and SEO are strictly professional.)
Okay, SEO strategy is all part of the job and what typically comes to mind are keywords and rankings. Content Marketing Institute is helping us tackle a specific skill of optimizing your site for Google Carousel results.
You’ve seen these carousels. They appear as links at the top of SERPs. Carousels are common in queries where people are searching for the “best of” something (ex: computers, bikes, movies, etc.)
They won’t show for every query though. Google serves up carousels based on search intent, so looking at what populates in carousels helps you better understand the searcher and their intent.
- Video carousels may just be the easiest carousels you can optimize for. If you can create a great video matching a query, then you’re well on your way. Hosting your videos on YouTube will yield better results since Google is partial to its own video service.
- Image carousel optimization is not much different than standard image optimization. Be sure you include your target keywords in the image file name, use alt text, plus original and meaningful images as much as possible.
- Host carousels are another great option you can optimize for, but only if your content pertains to courses, movies, recipes, or restaurants. Just make sure your content piece covers only one of these categories at a time. These categories may not be a home run for you, but they might help you get acquainted with this format for when more categories are allowed.
Give carousel optimization a try and read on for more great tips. And just for fun, while you have your iPhone in hand, search your target query for carousels.
