How to Optimize Your Images For Search Engine Traffic
|
| ||||||||
| Compare: | Web Design Calculator | Web Design Cost Guidelines |
Do you offer SEO services? Get listed on this site Free!
The following is part of a multiple part series covering image optimization techniques. This article is intended for beginners through intermediate SEO’s; if this doesn’t pertain to you, you may want to skim as most of this will probably be review material for you.
Some of the big questions many people ask are why would they even want to perform image optimization? Doesn’t it just help people who want to steal or hotlink images? And is there really any meaningful traffic or links that you can get from image optimization? IMHO the answer is yes. Let’s say someone is going on a trip to Italy. They might do image searches for things to do or see in Italy and for famous Italian landmarks like the Leaning Tower of Piza, the Trevi Fountain, or St. Peter’s Basilica. Thanks to Google’s universal search results, images provide a way to get onto the first page (or, in some cases, the top result) and get a click through, an ad view, or adsense impression. It might even get a lead generation completion. Maybe you run a fish store. If a university professor or government agency needs a picture of a fish and your image result appears, and you allow your images to be reused in exchange for a link, this can be huge way to passively build links slowly over time (true story! It happened for a client I used to have). Now that we’ve got the why out of the way, let’s talk about the “how” of image optimization.
Filenames
This is one of the most basic elements of image optimization. If you have an image of blue widgets, I would name your image “blue-widgets.jpg” or “blue-widgets.gif”. You can use other formats like PNG, but I have gotten better results with “jpg” and “gif” files. You can use other characters like underscore as word delimiters, but I get better results with hyphens. You can run the words together if they are separate in other factors. I have found stemming plays a role (ie widget vs widgets), but you can get around it using other factors. I haven’t seen capitalization play a role, but I prefer to use all lower case because I usually use Apache servers and case sensitivity matters. If you are going to have multiple images of the same object-type, I suggest adding a “-1″, “-2″ onto the end.
Now, before the hate mail or hate tweets start, it is entirely possible to have an image rank without the keywords being in the file name–IF there are enough other factors in place. However, you should ask yourself why would you give up a chance to give a search engine a signal about what an image is about? If you work on a large ecommerce platform or other large database application, chances are good that your gold diamond earrings will have an image file name like “GDX347294.jpg” that corresponds to the item’s SKU or other internal classifier. So, yes, you will have to sacrifice the keyword for business reasons.
ALT Text
Let’s get the basic information out of the way: ALT text was designed for screen readers or visually-impaired people to know what they weren’t seeing. Your goal is to use it to satisfy the screen readers while being keyword focused enough for the search engines and without being a keyword stuffing spammer. Here’s an example of ALT text variations:
Keyword stuffed: discount hotel room paris france
ALT text only: Eiffel Tower
SEO optimized: Eiffel Tower from Louvre Bons Enfants hotel room
Striving to find a balance between pleasing the search engines and text readers can be a juggling act. If you are risky with some of your other SEO techniques, I’d play this on the safe side.
Headings and Bold Text
If image optimization for a particular image is important, I really like to optimize the image with bold or a heading tag of the term I’m chasing right above the image. I’ve found this really helps give a strong signal to the engines
Oceanus Statue from Trevi Fountain
Oceanus Statue from Trevi Fountain
Image Captions
Image captions like the one to the right are another way I really like to give the search engines a good nudge in the direction I want them to go. Try to place the search term you are trying to optimize for at the front of the caption.
Image size
I’ve found that if you keep your images a reasonable size you generally do better with image optimization. That’s not to say really big or really small images won’t rank, just that images that are larger than 100×100 and smaller than 1200×1200 work best. Using a thumbnail that links to a larger picture can be helpful.
Image Traffic
So what can you expect from image traffic? Like all things, it depends on what you are chasing, but I have one image that ranks on the first page for a single word term that brings in hundreds of views for me every month. The page has adsense on it and, over a single year, it brings in several hundred dollars worth of revenue. It’s something to think about before you write off image optimization.
Images Traffic Data
So what are the takeaways from this post:
- Try to name your images with your keywords if possible, using the hyphen as a delimiter.
- Shorter names are better than longer. Avoid using more than 4 words if possible.
- Keep your ALT text keyword focused without being stuffed or spammy.
- If possible use headings or bold tags above or directly next to the image.
- Use captions if at all possible and keep the keywords closer to the front of the caption.
- Keep the images a reasonable size. They should be large enough for people to see but small enough to fit on a screen.
- If you own the image, encourage people to reuse your image in exchange for a link.
- Try to find a way to monetize image traffic with CPM advertising, adsense, or affiliate links.
Related posts:
- Search Engine Spiders I’ve been conducting some experiments with search engines, spiders and...
- Does W3C compliance and accessibility impact your Search Engine Optimization Douglas Karr sent me a question that I get asked...
- What Search Engine Conferences Should I Attend One of the questions I get asked frequently is “which...
- Search Engine Glossary Review SO I was asked to take a look at Aaron...
- Make WordPress Search Engine Friendly Here are some tips for setting up wordpress and making...
Advertisers:
- Text Link Ads - New customers can get $100 in free text links.
- BOTW.org - Get a premier listing in the internet's oldest directory.
- Ezilon.com Regional Directory - Check to see if your website is listed!
- Directory Journal - Get permanent deep links in a search engine friendly directory
- Glass Whiteboards - For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review
- Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
- Link Building- Backlink Build offers 45 PR5+ Backlinks for $295
- KnowEm - Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
- Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
- TigerTech - Great Web Hosting service at a great price.
- What Motivates You - what makes you want to get up and be successful
This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.
How to Optimize Your Images For Search Engine Traffic
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:54:35 GMT
Tags: Featured, image optimization, SEO,
Sandusky E-Commerce | Ocala E-Commerce | Wylie E-Commerce | Chicago E-Commerce | Kolkata E-Commerce | Hudson E-Commerce | Lafayette E-Commerce | Buford E-Commerce | San Antonio E-Commerce | Northport E-Commerce |
Featured
Content Farms – What You Can Learn and Apply
While Google has taken action against content farms, from a strategic perspective I still think there are lessons that every publisher can learn from the content farm model. If you haven’t already seen it, please take a look at the leaked AOL doc
Link Building – Creating Exceptional Content for Boring Topics
Whenever you’re at a conference and you speak to a Google Engineer about link building, they will almost always default back to “create exceptional content that is linkworthy” or some similar concept. I’ve been speaking with peo
Preparing for The Death of RSS
While I personally am a big fan of RSS, I stand by my position that RSS is not being adopted by the mainstream population (see the big fat RSS lie) and is therefore a dying technology. There have been numerous articles about RSS being dead or not. Feel
image optimization
SEO
How to Choose a New Domain
One of the questions I get asked quite regularly is how do I choose a new domain name for a project I decide to work on. There are quite a few aspects I take into account that I will share with you. Exact Match Domains – If you can get an exact m
Raven SEO Tools Review: Social Media
Raven SEO Toolset in a powerful tool in any SEO’s toolbox. In the first part of this series, we looked at Using Raven SEO Tools to Manage and Track Your Keywords. In this post we’re going to be looking at using Raven to manage your social m
Need SEO Search Engine Optimization Directory? Check out our member profiles:
Search engine optimization of existing sites, search-engine-friendly copy writing services, re-design or new design using best practices for getting better search engine rankings.
Billings, Montana US
A free step by step solutions and tutorial site that has tutorials for beginners how to create a website. Includes WordPress tutorials, web design tutorials and more.
Shelby, North Carolina US
I'm now offering, to local business owners like you, in Greenville, and the surrounding areas, a new service that gets quick and effective results: more online exposure and new customers!
Stanton, Michigan US
Looking to get high rankings on Search Engines? eBizUniverse gets you to the top faster. Combining legal white hat techniques & social media strategies we ensure that your website climbs to the top!
Schaumburg, Illinois US
How do you reduce your marketing costs and increase your customers response and loyalty at the same time? By combining time tested communications principles with the latest web marketing technologies!
New Port Richey, Florida US
AnS International specializes in web design, search engine optimization, web marketing, social media marketing, copywriting, and website hosting services. We are based out of Colorado.
Fort Collins, Colorado US
SEO News
Google+ adds easier facial recognition to photos.
Google have just announced that they have rolled out a new feature for tagging friends in albums. The change replicates the feature already available inside competing social network Facebook, however Google’s face recognition built into th"
How to Automate a Twitter Feed with Hootsuite and Bufferapp
The following is part of a series on automation. In this post we will be looking at using two tools, Hootsuite and Bufferapp to complement each other. If you haven’t read my Hootsuite review and Bufferapp review already, it’s probably a goo"
Google’s Page Speed Service Wanna Make The Web Faster
How would you like to have Google grab all your site files, host them on a Google server, optimize the loading time with several tweaks, and then allow your visitors to visit your site directly on Google's servers all around the world? Original Po"
4 Tenets Your Social Media Should Live By
Frequently clients ask the question: How do we effectively manage our social media? I would like to propose 4 steadfast rules to managing your social media here. 1. Establish Yourself Without a well branded and comprehensive social profile for your busine"
Is Content Really King?
There are a number ways to get your website more visibility: higher search engine rankings, interesting content, pay per click, affiliate marketing and social media. These are all great ways of increasing traffic and most large organizations touch on ever"
Article Tags
SEO Search Engine Optimization Directory Articles
blog
SEO
Social Media
featured
Monetize
Reviews
SEO Tips
Writing Content
strategy
Promotion
Link Building
wordpress
Blogging Basics
News
tools
slider
Web Tools
Friends:
Logo Designers
Interactive Web Design
