Important Tips for Image Search Optimization

Image search is one of those very few opportunities that are still easier to cash-in in the search marketing field. It is true that traffic coming from image search cannot be converted like traffic coming from web search but for some particular industries they work quite well. Its very difficult to get into Google‘s first page for some highly competitive keywords even with heavy optimization.

Let’s look out how we can optimize images for the search engines. Naming the images, alt attributes etc. are common attributes and are known by all. There are some other points those can also be added in this :-

Image Naming : Include keywords and use descriptive file names. Use hyphen for multi-word file name instead of underscore. If you have an image of a red widget then it will be better to write it as Red-widget-For Sale.jpg rather than using some nonsense names.

Alt Attributes : Although it’s a known point for most of us, use suitable and descriptive Alt attribute with a keyword. Make sure that your alt attribute is describing your image property.

Title for image : Include a suitable, descriptive title that includes keywords in the title tag also.

Surrounding text : The page text that includes suitable keywords is important for image optimization. The text is a reference for identifying the image and adds relevance also.

Long Desc Attribute : If the image is extremely important and has got some text then Long Desc attribute, can be used to explain the image in Details.

Heading tags : If you want to rank the image then try header tags also. Add small text caption with the keyword for the image. Place both caption and the image in the header tag. Use H2 or lower tags.

Get Links : Get few links that directly points to the image itself. Use targeted keywords.

Link out : To link out to another page about the image if possible use main and highlighted image.

Enhanced image search : You can enhance image search feature by logging in to your Google webmaster tools account and activating image search feature.

Page Ranking : The ranking of the parent and the linking page is also considered by the Google image search. If the parent does not contain enough information and is not ranked well, the search engine might be in doubt whether to show the page image or the site.

All users are not on the high bandwidth, an optimized image of low file size can prove to be helpful for them.

It’s always important to check that the images are not filtered out in the Google safe search filter. It can be checked by using site:domain.com command on image search to check index status and safe search status by switching the link for safe search given under the search box.

Like other aspects of SEO there is also not any hard and fast rule and things are governed by the common sense . We hope that these factors can be beneficial to get your images ranked.