We recently covered SEO for Images so I figured I'd write a follow-up post about another tactic you can use to help search engines "understand" what particular images are of. The alt tag is still your most powerful ally in this battle, but don't forget the image URL. The search engines most certainly look at the name of the image file for additional clues as to what that image is of. For example, an image file called chocolate.jpg is much more descriptive than IMG003482.jpg.
So, when naming your image files, first make sure that you use names for the files that are descriptive, and second, ensure that those descriptions are mindful of the keywords you are targeting. Every bit counts when helping search engines properly interpret your pages, especially when it comes to images.
Showing posts with label image. Show all posts
Showing posts with label image. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
SEO for Images: The Alt Tag and Image Search
We've talked a good deal about how to ensure your content is properly indexed by search engines and ranks well for keywords that are important to you.
However, what about when your content is not "readable" as in an image on a page? How do you ensure that the search engine is able to understand what the contents of the image are and in turn drives relevant search traffic to that image and the page that contains it.
The answer to this question is fairly straightforward yet one that is often overlooked: Use the "alternative" or ALT tag to provide attributes to describe the image. Not only is this a good thing to do from an accessibility and usability standpoint but also for SEO.
The syntax is as follows: img src="image.jpg" alt="alternative description here"
As you decide what to include in the alt attribute, make sure that the attribute accurately describes the image and also that the way it is described is such that it optimizes for the keywords that are important to you.
Finally, search engines like Google have image-focused search options (e.g., Google Image Search) which can actually drive quite a good deal of traffic by itself. Make sure to keep that in mind as you create appropriate and relevant alt tags for your images.
However, what about when your content is not "readable" as in an image on a page? How do you ensure that the search engine is able to understand what the contents of the image are and in turn drives relevant search traffic to that image and the page that contains it.
The answer to this question is fairly straightforward yet one that is often overlooked: Use the "alternative" or ALT tag to provide attributes to describe the image. Not only is this a good thing to do from an accessibility and usability standpoint but also for SEO.
The syntax is as follows: img src="image.jpg" alt="alternative description here"
As you decide what to include in the alt attribute, make sure that the attribute accurately describes the image and also that the way it is described is such that it optimizes for the keywords that are important to you.
Finally, search engines like Google have image-focused search options (e.g., Google Image Search) which can actually drive quite a good deal of traffic by itself. Make sure to keep that in mind as you create appropriate and relevant alt tags for your images.
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