How To Use GIF Engine Optimization for Better SEO Rankings

Blog posts and articles as digital marketing avenues are becoming more prevalent today. Including Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) images in these types of content helps increase engagement and add value. SEO agency professionals even optimize GIFs to help websites enhance SEO rankings.

In this article, we will discuss:

• What a GIF is
• Why you should use GIFs in your content
• What GIF engine optimization is
• What are the steps in GIF engine optimization

After reading this article, you should know how to optimize your GIFs to help in your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. Let’s go!

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What Is a GIF?

A GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, is a type of image file used to create short animations or looping videos. GIFs can be created from a sequence of still images, videos, or other types of media. They are ideal for online communication and social media as a way to express emotions or reactions, convey a message, or add visual interest to a text-based conversation.

GIFs are also ideal for ads and other digital content because they add movement and interest to images that would otherwise be still. In short, GIFs are short, animated images often used to send a message or make digital content more interesting.

What Is GIF Engine Optimization?

GIF engine optimization (GEO) is the process of optimizing animated images or GIFs to ensure they get as much exposure as possible. Like SEO, the goal of GEO is to make GIFs easier to discover by pushing them to the top of GIF search results.

If web pages have Google and Bing, GIFs have GIPHY and Tenor, both using an algorithm to determine which GIFs are of high quality and therefore deserving to appear on the first page of search results.

SEO and GEO are strikingly similar, and they work almost the same. If you have worked on SEO, you can rest assured that you won’t have trouble understanding GEO.

How to Optimize Your GIFs

Like SEO, performing GEO is not complicated, but you need to do it right if you want favorable results. You can optimize your GIFs by following the steps below.

     1. Perform keyword research

Just like SEO, GEO is all about getting the right keywords. Hence, GIF optimization also starts with keyword research. Finding the top keywords to use and including them in your GIFs’ metadata makes them more likely to show up in GIF search engine results.

Metadata is extra information about an image file that is used by search engines when someone makes a query.

Any website can use GEO to improve its SEO rankings, but it is most effective for sites with large volumes of text or low-volume videos. The best way to choose keywords for GIFs is to find ones that are relevant to your brand and have a medium-to-high search volume.

     2. Plan and create

You should not only optimize for the top keywords you found via research but also optimize for branded keywords for which you want a high ranking for in search results.

Then, you want to create a vessel for these keywords in the form of informative content that fulfills Google’s E.E.A.T. standards. This ensures the content can drive brand equity and website traffic.

Long-tail keywords are ideal in GEO if you want to show up higher in the search results. Many short-tail keywords are highly competitive, making it difficult to rank well with them. For better results, use long-tail keywords relevant to your business.

Lastly, GIF search engines use image recognition technology to analyze GIFs to determine what they contain. This means it is imperative that your GIF’s content matches the keywords you want to use. Texts inside a GIF are detected by the search engine and related to the GIF.

     3. Decrease file sizes

Compress your GIFs. By nature, GIFs have a small file size, making them easy to embed and share, but you still want to compress them if you seek to optimize. Besides, some GIFs might have large file sizes, depending on their quality.

Various methods of compressing GIFs exist, but these two are the most popular:

• Lossy compression - reduces the file size by removing some data from the original file. The primary downside of this compression method is the degradation of quality over time. Every time the GIF is saved after compression, it becomes more blurry and pixelated.
• Lossless compression - reduces the file size without removing any data. The compressed file can be decompressed to get the original file. However, the compressed file size is larger compared to lossy compression.

For websites, lossy compression is the ideal choice since it can make your web pages load faster. The subtle changes in color due to deterioration are often imperceptible to the human eye.

     4. Upload and share

After you have found the right keywords, created the content, and compressed the files, it's time to put your GIF online. Make sure to embed your optimized GIFs into a post and share them on all of your social media sites. Doing so boosts your GIF’s ranking on GIF search engines.

Should You Use Gifs in Your Content?

Yes. Use GIFs in your digital content if you want to amplify your brand’s online presence. GIFs can

1. Increase engagement, capturing attention with digital content, such as social media posts or emails.
2. Improve expression, conveying  emotions in a way that text alone cannot.
3. Enhance storytelling by helping create mini-narratives and add visual interest to digital stories.
4. Increase shareability because GIFs are easy to share and can quickly go viral, thus increasing the reach of digital content.
5. Help with faster loading because they have a small file size.
6. Simplify explanation of complex concepts or information, making ideas easier to understand.
7. Improve branding by helping create brand-specific content that can increase brand awareness and recognition.

Summing Up

In a nutshell, GEO is SEO focused solely on GIFs. If you have been looking for more ways to boost your site’s SEO ranking, consider investing time in GEO. Contact Digital Authority Partners if you want expert help in enhancing your digital marketing efforts.