Hundred Dollar SEO

Yesterday I put up a quick post about Alt Tags and Image Search. Today I want to offer a more robust description of what you can do for image search. First the prevailing opinions on what affects image search.

Insert keywords into your alt tag.

• The first step is including keywords in your alt tag. Images are an area that still relies heavily on user input to determine content. Here’s an example: <img src=”filename.jpg” alt=”Short Description of Image“>

Give descriptive names to your files.

• If you have an image of a Vespa Gran Turismo 250, you could use the term ‘vespa-turismo-250.jpg’ to name your image. This is more descriptive than ‘DSC_0132.jpg’. I usually name my images similar to my alt text.

Write relevant text around your images.

• I mentioned yesterday that using Google Image, you’ll find a short description of 20+ characters beneath every image. Often you will not find your keywords in this description. If you visit the image you will often find the keywords in close proximity in the text. In some cases you will find one word in the image alt tag and the rest of your phrase in body text.

Consider image sizing.

• Google tends to favor larger images, to a point.

Link the image with valuable anchor text.

• Use keywords instead of a generic phrase when you link to full size versions. For example, instead of using “See More” or “Click Here For Full Size,” try something like “New Vespa Gran Turismo 250” or “Vespa 250LX“.

Make your images standards-compliant.

• To be standards compliant your images should define source, height, width, alt, and title tag for the image as well. Chris Pearson does a good job of describing image compliance.

Enable Google enhanced image search in Webmaster Central.

• Visit Google Webmaster Tools. Under “tools” choose enhanced image search and click on the checkbox to opt into image search for your website. This can only be done after you verify your website with Google so do that before proceeding further. This give Google permission to use your images in Google Image Labeler. The image labeler is a online game which allows you to write tags for images that appear during the game. These tags are then taken into consideration for Google Image search results.

If you take all of these steps you will create a strong indication of what your images are.

You should also bear in mind that Google applies many of the same signals to relevance in all of their properties so you should be looking for opportunities to leverage your content and internal linkage to associate text with your images to best capitalize on image searches.

Tags:   Google · SEO2 Comments

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