Images as an asset for organic search results and SEO are usually overlooked. Images can drive traffic through image search as well as inclusion in universal search results. There are several dimensions to image optimization that involves better placement in search results, optimization for user experience and, in some cases, optimization for easier sharing of images on the social web.
For image SEO, it can be helpful to think of optimizing images like optimizing a tiny webpage within your page. Things like descriptive tagging, anchor text and URL structure are factors in optimizing images for search engines, just like regular web pages.
Formatting Images for SEO
Always make sure that the file name of the picture includes the name of the product with hyphens in between words. The file name should be the “alt tag” and is uploaded to its own URL with the file name in the actual URL. This ensures that Google’s bot spiders will see your keywords additional times per picture. If you have no idea how to write an Alt Tag into your image, Pro Blogger says it will look something like this:
<img src=”http://secure.cre8dserver.com/~problogger.net/wp-images/darren-rowse.jpg” alt=“the keywords you are targeting” width=”75″ height=”100″/>
Tips and Tricks on Image SEO
Optimizing images is similar to the way you optimize a website. In other words, you have to worry about many of the same things on both the back end and the front that you worry about when it comes time to upload and optimize an article. Below are a few tips to help make sure that your images are showing up at the top of image SERPs.
- Find the right images
- Use the keyword(s) in the file name
- Create descriptive alt text
- The right anchor text
- Make sure the image matches the content
- Don’t stuff
Title Tags For Images and SEO
We all know how hugely important alt tags are when it comes to optimizing images for SEO, but what about the image title tag? Is it as important as the alt tag? Does it even matter? Jason McDonald, PhD from the JM Internet Group gave a concise answer to this question.
“The TITLE tag for an image (NOT to be confused with the TITLE tag of a page!) is generally thought to be ignored by Google. One of the reasons I refer people to the Google SEO Starter Guide is that it re-inforces the fact that the “code base” of Google was largely written in late 1999 / 2000. The tags that did not yet exist (think CSS stylesheets), generally are not mentioned in the document…
“..TITLE tag of an image: probably does not help, probably does not hurt – it becomes the “hover text” when someone hovers his mouse over an image.”
It is worth noting that you should not steal photos off the internet unless you are going to give it proper credit. This can get you in trouble, and optimizing someone else’s photo is similar to optimizing a piece of copied content. This should not look good in the eyes of search engines.