Image Optimization: An Easy SEO Opportunity

Optimizing for Google image search

We’ve noticed lately that more and more traffic is coming from Google Image search. This trend is not surprising as web searches get savvier and learn how to search in different ways. Now searchers are making queries within blogs, images, videos and news. So, to stay on top of this trend, sites should optimize their images. Increasingly, customers will be searching for new equipment by looking through Google’s image database, so you want your company’s images to be at the top of the image results.

It’s to be expected that proper ALT text should be written for all images. Don’t spam up your alt tags with keyword stuffing like “web designing,web designing packages,web design”. This will probably make Google mad, and users can see that text when they mouse over the image. Instead, write an honest and exact description of the image like “Website Designing”.

Next, consider the file name of your image. Don’t name your images with a number like image909.gif Name your image for what it is like web-designing-modelA.gif. Google’s image bot reads the image name along with the alt tag, so properly naming your images is another opportunity for image optimization.

Consider adding caption text to the image. Google seems to pick up on the text surrounding the image, so adding keyword driven content to your captions can help with optimization.

Also consider the way your images are displayed. Google can’t read alt tags or text from images embedded in a slide show. Any image with script involved will not be read by the search engine, so consider how you display them.