Libraries have been written about how to optimize the content of your business for SEO, but images are often over looked. Why cut yourself off from a potential extra traffic source when image optimization for seo can be very simple? Making your pictures and graphics search engine friendly does not have to take much time either.
Image Optimization for SEO. Keywords in WordPress
Here are some image and photo optimization tips that you can apply to your business and Internet Marketing model.
1. For starters, you should have a very good system for finding keyword phrases that people are typing into search engines.
The basis of SEO are the keyword phrases that have high searches and little competition which are relevant to your audience. You need to know what phrases your potential audience and community are searching for.
I would highly suggest that you read my free book by signing up on the top right. I poured a lot of effort into it and show some unique tactics.
Once you have your keyword phrase that is related to your business, you are going to use one keyword phrase per image or photo. Simply change the name of your image to the keyword. When you upload it, add the alt, title, and caption as the keyword too.
If you are good with your server, you can take this a step further and make a new directory that is keyword realted, too. Take note of the full image URL for when you insert it into a post. This leads me to the second strategy for optimizing your images.
2. Insert your photo into relevant content.
When possible, it pays to put your keyword rich image or photo into content that is relevant to the keyword. The surrounding text will give a boost to its optimiztion and can be the differerence in traffic or not.
3. Use the fact that Google loves Flickr.
Flickr images are the ones that I see popping up most in the search engines. Stick to the keyword tactics above. In Flickr, however, you can get direct traffic from there.
This is especially effective if you are in a market, or blogging about topics, that are highly visual. The ones that come to mind are travel, art and food. Join as many related Flickr groups as you can find. When you upload a photo, add it to those groups to get in front of massive amounts of eyeballs. Make sure you promote your blog somewhere.
These tactics can be deadly for struggling artists, photographers, graphic designers and cooks. Pretty much anyone that is trying to get their visual work found.
Image optimization for SEO can be easy and fun. As with any tactic in Internet Marketing, keep consistent in your efforts. I would suggest setting up a schedule of some kind to take a few photos per day and upload them. They will add up faster than you think.
Also, research more. This post should be just a starting point for you. I am sure there are hundreds of tips and sites to boost your images’ chances in the search engines. Just Google it!
Have fun out there.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Just a couple of quick questions. Per the box above, the second line of it, Alternate text. I always put whatever I write there in quotation marks per the little blurb right underneath. Is that wrong. Second, I'm never sure what to do with the three buttons. Should I be using them. Which one?
Great Question! The link URL box is the way to have that image clickable. You can add an affiliate link, or have it point to another site that people will go to if they click that image. It can be any URL.
The buttons mean: None–>Image does not point anywhere, File URL–>Image points to the location on your server that the image is stored, Post URL–>Image points to that blog post. Have a good one!
Thanks Jared! You've solved another mystery for me!