How to Optimize your Images for Search Engines
Bloggers spend most of the time in optimizing our posts with targeted keywords for search engine rankings. This has not been under the SEO umbrella for a long time to optimize Images. But as the competition for higher ranks has intensified over the years, this has been a utmost priority to optimize images in your weblog entries.The web is more visual now. So let us see how to optimize images.
Get The HTML Attributes Fixed:
1. Fixing “alt” TAGS : Dig down in your blog’s source code and see the piece of HTML . It describes the image to a search bot. See the tag alt=”alt key chart” ? This text is used when the image cannot be loaded in cases where the URL is broken or the page is viewed in a text-only browser. This is a prime field to enter your keywords.
2. Proper “title” TAGS : Now again look out for the tag title=”alt chart”. This is the text shown when you hover the mouse over the image. The title tag & alt tag are often confused to be the same & hence the text inside the quotes are kept the same. This is a wastage of opportunity. Because you can also use keywords(that you are targeting) in this title attribute. Note I have used different texts for the two(title & alt tags).
3. Text Text Text , never say watch this: Search engines always look for surrounding texts near an image. So the more text and keyword rich your posts the more are the chances that your image will be indexed and get the ranks. So use Quality keywords in your article body and near paragraphs containing the image
4. “Longdesc” ATTRIBUTE: This is somewhat rare tag that is used in an image HTML source code. This is not that necessary for text-content based sites(or blogs) using images for demonstration only. But for those with images as their main content this tag is a must. Look the HTML(below) I’ve linked a File name alt.txt which holds description for the image I’ve used.
<img title=”alt chart” src=”http://img.your-blog.com/altchart.png” border=”0″ alt=”alt-key-chart” longdesc=”alt.txt”/>
5. No scripts please: Last but most important tip for image optimization is that use images embedded in HTML tags only & not using Jscript cause the petty bots are unable to read scripts though they manage to read the HTML properly.
If you are not sure how to Do those don’t worry there is a plugin called SEO Friendly Images for WordPress that will help you out.
Utilizing File Attributes:
1. Use proper file name: Now this is also a great place to put your keywords. So if you are targeting a keyword phrase “SEO for Google” and using an image in that post then the filename seo-for-google.jpg seems perfect. Do not use filenames like seo.jpg or seo_for_google.jpg. Because the first one lacks keywords & in the second one the underscores(_) is not good, use dashes(-) to separate between words.
2. Compress images for faster loading: This is not linked to better SEO. But somehow it is a technique to optimize images for faster loading. I’m providing some free Tools online to get your job done.
1. Smush.it – It has got one WP plugin too.
1. Image Optimizer
3. AnvSoft Photo Manager 1.20
4. Love2Photo
Removing Google iframe:
We optimize images to get better search ranks & somehow if we manage to do so, they are shown within the top results for the targeted keyword. But when the viewer clicks on the image, Google puts a damn iframe on the page shown. Now that is not fine. Lets see how to remove this sticky frame so that if someone clicks an image of ours, they come direct to our sites & not redirected through the Google server. Just add the following script below the <body> tag in the header.php file.
<script language=”JavaScript” type=”text/javascript”>
if (top.location != self.location) top.location.replace(self.location);
</script>
Now whenever your images are indexed in search engines and a user clicks that image he will be directed in your website which is cool !
Hope you found it useful. Will you optimize your images? Share with us! Happy Blogging!!
Related posts:
Good tutorial for SEO purposes! Removing the iFrame is mostly forgotten by many.
Even by me
Thanks for your comments..!
Images search sometimes will give you good traffic. No doubt at all =)
That’s true..People will get good traffic from sites like flickr,photobucket and etc…
Are you sure that there we are not violating any Google TOS by that javascript! I am pretty much extra cautious on playing with Google
I don’t think so Swashata. Of course we need to be careful though
Great post. I am going to get right on scouring my code to see how it is setup. Every bit of SEO help I can get the better. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your opinion here dude..!
good post by TechZoomIn, I already working to optimize my Images for better search ranking and may be soon i will write post on this topic,thanks
Oh Good waiting to see your experiences in your post..!
Hey nice sharing !
4th one is quite one if you ask me…
Great you loved it.Thanks for sharing your opinion dude..!
I’ve never payed any attention to Images so I guess I’m going to start from now on.
Even i didn’t till recent times. But i realized that image search engines will drive quite respectable traffic.
What about spaces vs dashes for Images?
Is there any difference? Which is better?
Thanks,
Mike
No spaces …. Use dashes .
When the Google image bot crawls your image It looks for a String or an array of characters. Characters separated by dashes mean that they are part of the same array or string but hold a separate meaning.
While characters separated by spaces Do not mean that they are part of the same text. I hope you get my point
SEO friendly image plugin will be useful too
Yes thats true..
cool, i am getting a decent traffic from Images.google
Yes you will get getting more traffic, as you will be writing some interesting celebrities & media posts..
Thanks
Great tips and plugin list, thanks! I put an image in every one of my posts, so I’m wasting SEO opportunities if I don’t Do these.
S ture..Thanks for sharing your opinion dude..!
One of my great traffic source is Image search result.
Along with optimizing Images for search engine try to use Flickr to drive traffic for your blog.
More over to take care of SEO of your images, Try using SEo friendly images WordPress plugin, but make sure you keep the name of your images as meaning ful rather then DC34343.jpg or something.
Thanks for this tut
I would also recommend everyone to use SEO Friendly Image WordPress plugin .
Ohh what does that Do actually ?
I’ve never payed any attention to Images so I now i have to take care about this thing, any way tutorial is good.
My only idea on optimizing an image was the alt tag. I never thought that they were more than one tags.
Thanks for the information it should useful…