SEO and Images – Increase Your Search Rankings With Properly Formatted Images
ive your SEO efforts a boost by using best practices when adding graphics and photos to your website. When users are searching for products on the Internet they often times use images in their searches rather than looking at website returns. You can take advantage of this by ensuring that you name your image properly and that you use the proper alt tag when inserting your photo or image.
Naming Your Image or Photo: Instead of naming your photo DSC00047 try giving it a descriptive name. For instance, if your image is of a barbecue smoker, use the products name. An example would be “chargriller_duogrill.jpg”. By using this image naming format your photo should come up for various image searches such as “chargriller smoker” when people are searching for that product.
For an example of this technique in use, go to www.google.com and enter “chargriller” into the search box and hit enter. (CharGriller is a brand name for a combination bbq grill and smoker) Click on the “images” link at the top of the search return page and if you look down you should see an image from one of my blogs at www.bbqhub.com As a result of this image showing up for people searching for CharGriller grills I get more traffic to my site and opportunity to make a sale of a bbq related products.
Using Alt Tags For Your Images and Photos: the definition of an “alt” tag is – HTML tag that provides alternative text when non-textual elements, typically images, cannot be displayed. You have seen them before. You move your mouse arrow across and image and a small box appears with text info that usually provides a description of what that image is. There are several advantages to using the “alt” tag when adding images and graphics to your site including:
- provide further detail for an image or the destination of a linked image
- provide much-needed information for people who surf the Web with graphics turned off, and people who surf the Web with text-only browsers.
- enable and enhance access for people with various disabilities
- assist in navigation when a graphics-intensive site is being viewed over a slow connection, enabling site visitors to make navigation choices before graphics are fully rendered.
- provides and opportunity to add important key search terms to your html for the search engines to pick up.
Combining proper image naming and using “alt” tags can significantly help in your SEO efforts and overall marketing campaign.
