It’s astounding how simple image SEO for blogs really is. I’m ranking so high in Google Image Search with the images that illustrate my posts that I get more traffic via Image Search than the text based Google search inspite being top 10 for “SEO blog” and number 1 for SEO 2.0.
While Image traffic is not useful without making it useful the first step is to get the traffic. So let’s take a look at the 7 simple image SEO best practices that lead to the top of Google Image Search:
- The title of the page and headline of the post should be corresponding to image “A Red Apple Tastes Better” should be followed by apple.jpg
- The post or text below should deal with the same topic as the image or describe it
- The image caption (the text directly below the image) should focus on the image subject: “Tasty apple”.
- The image size should be at least 250*300 pixel.
- The image name should be something like keyword1-keyword2.png
- File type should be png, jpg, gif in this order, Portable Network Graphics perform best
- Skip the usually spammy (keyword stuffed) alt attribute unless you want to use it for the visually impaired.
Once this works you can think about what to do with all this Google Image search traffic. By default it’s sheer load for most blogs unless you sell art prints. There are several ways to make this traffic useful. I will show these in the net image SEO post.
Related posts:
- 7 Simple Ways to Use Universal Search to Appear on Top of Google
- 7 Simple Blogging Inspiration Techniques
- Why Image Optimization is Important for Blogs
- The Only 5 SEO 2.0 Blogs You Need
- 12 Effects Google Personal Search Will Have on SEO, Blogging, Social Media and the Web as Whole
Need help? Consider a world class blog & SEO consultation by the author of SEO 2.0, Tad Chef. For full fledged SEO services like ongoing link building, contact my partners from SEO.com or look up my directory of SEO service providers and checkout reputable companies like Datadial or Redfly.
Already an SEO? Consider applying to be added to my exclusive SEO agency directory. Only selected companies get included. Find out whether you are eligible to submit your site.
This thing has 42 Comments
Awesome tips. You can getting a lot of traffic from the image searches. People just do not know how to go about getting that traffic. Great tips.
Tips is simple but has astounding ripple effect…
Thanks for a great post. I just wondering how to do that, when I posting only photos on my blog. Just didn’t know before that images alone can bring traffic to site. Great tips and I’ll gonna use your tips.That is sure.
Thanks for the feedback Franklin.
Please abide by my commenting rules though. I asked you to do that several times. You neither reply to comments nor to mails. Next time you use my comment form for an anchor text link I won’t tolerate that anymore.
It’s the last time I changed your SEO keyword to your actual name.
Sarbartha: Ripple effect? Please explain.
Gert: You have a great blog but you do it wrong, this way you won’t ever rank for your image searches.
How is Google meant to know that there’s a bird in this image?
http://camchallenge.blogspot.com/2009/03/picture-of-day_16.html
Great Post
I have done this for a client and concur with all the points you have outlined.
Funny thing is that while she (my client) has actually performed a Google Image Search for a very broad keyword and discovered that a picture of herself (with her name as a text layer in the image) has come up as the #1 Image, its not really doing much for the site. But it’s great for her own ego because an authority (Google) now shows her picture when you type in a keyword normally reserved for the title of someone legendary in her field.
opt in to enhanced image search via google webmaster is also a good idea…
I love that you posted about this; it’s so often overlooked that I can appreciate how simple you made it for others to understand- well done!
And what’s better: host the images at your own blog or using flickr?
Why would you care how high up you rank on Google’s image search? In my experience people search images to rip them off (“just need a quick jpeg of Abe Lincoln”), not to find content.
Seriously, I’m curious. Are users really searching images to find pages of relevant images? If I want to search for articles on red apples I’ll use the normal search. If I need a picture of a red apple for my logo I’ll use Google’s image search. (No I don’t actually do that … but you know what I mean)
I only have one photo on my blog at the moment, but i think, when i add more, i will follow what you have suggested and see how it goes.
One of the pictures in my portfolio is on the first results page for “christmas newsletter”, but I had no idea until I was browsing my site stats a few days before Christmas. I didn’t have any time to take advantage of the unexpected traffic, so I’m looking forward to your next post on how to make use of this!
Ranking right up there in Google Image Search is a good thing of course. May not be the best traffic but it’s good traffic.
Speaking for myself, say if I’m searching for the latest BMW 3 Series images. I do hang around in webpages that has unexpected and interesting info about that particular car.
If there are interesting related content around the images, it is bound to attract some attention. So I definitely agree with point 1 and 2.
@ AM Con
Have to agree, i dont tend to browse images for content either, i use the normal search functions for that. Hmm.
What would be the benefit for ranking high with images regarding targeted visitors?
People always seem to forget about images when they optimise their sites for the search engines. This article is good reminder for the importance of image optimisation.
Good Post , We used image optimization for one shopping cart and it shows good results. We always try to unique names as title for image so that we can easily get a good position for that image
They say that video marketing helps in advancing the objectives of the website. Well this is true, and another component of the SEO campaign is the proper use of images. This content enlighten those in need of help in properly using images.
hey
All the tips make sense to me..maybe not that much no.6
But the big question is can we monetize that traffic?
I understand that if you run a wallpapers website is, maybe, possible. But if you notice suddenly that you get some decent traffic from google images how to keep the visitor on your website?
That’s something interesting to find out.
Cheers,
Great tips. I know I’ve overlooked the images as a tool to use to get better ranking. I’ll have to go back and review all my images. Again, thanks.
Nice post, But actually alt tags are important if the image is used for linking as google uses its alt tag as the anchor text of the links, but thank you for all of the ideas.
you clearly summed them up
Nice post, But actually alt tags are important if the image is used for linking as google uses its alt tag as the anchor text of the links, but thank you for all of the ideas.
you clearly summed them up
(sorry I repeated post as you ask for real name to be included)
Hi,
great post. But skipping the alt tag is not something I’d recommend. It doesn’t has as much weight as it used to have before, but it still goes into the rating (similar to meta-description and meta-keywords of a site).
I shared more tips on using Google image search here:
http://internetmarketingabc.com/?p=206
hey! its that great topic …..
Seo best practice to beat the top google image search.ya that’s true and its can possible i think so upcoming time we can watch this its more efforts to then maybe its possible………..
@ AM Con
Have to agree, i dont tend to browse images for content either, i use the normal search functions for that. Hmm.
Interesting! I wonder why .png works best…?
But what about visitor-quality through image search? I never stay at a website when searching for a particular image.
Good tips, I am curious as too why png works best though I do have thoughts on the matter.Did you test them I presume you did hence your conclusion.
wow, ididnt notice about image seo, thanks for sharing
Great advice….I haven’t had a project with an image search yet but if I come to one I will definitely keep that in mind.
Superb, its really a very interesting and informative post, I don’t know about these aspects of search engine,I Agree that Seo best practice to beat the top Google image search.
Thanks for these instructions.
Maybe I missed it in the comment replies, but why #6? Is there a link to some research you can provide as to why .png extensions outperform other graphics formats?
Putting the images in aptly named folders will also help. For example…
images/programming/languages/javascript.jpg
is better than…
images/javascript.jpg
I’m going to follow these tips purely for the ‘personal branding’ aspect… after neglecting my online persona for too long and not appearing anywhere in a Google search for my name I decided to take charge.
I’ve made it to the top for my own name now (although getting a first name listing for ‘Tim’ is unlikely), and the next step is to ensure that I appear in some of the image SERPs too.
Im’ coming in on this thread a bit late but searching for image SEO I found this great post. Thank you for all the tips. Am applying them as we speak. FYI: Google enhanced image search has been discontinued by now.
I don’t know what’s wrong with my site. I used the 7 practices above. However, there’s no one of my images indexed by google. Whereas, it was a good result on text based search..
I am using the 7 practices on one of my websites and it works like a charm, try pinging the url borang, nice info there
Don’t forget to put Google’s New Update into consideration, that kinda changes things.
Why do you say PNG works better? any theory, reason you have to bakcup this?
One more thing, if your image quality is good, you get more traffic. Don’t compromise on pictures. There are places on net where you can find high qualty images for free
I am actually getting nice amount of traffic from image search. But could you tell me how to use this traffic effectively.
Are images under 250*300 pixel (such as navigation images) a bad thing for SEO (if not put into CSS)? Also, isn’t load time a concern with images over 250*300 pixel in size?
I also tested a number of PNG images under dinnh Google seems to be more mindful of even heavy-capacity files, the content surrounding the image is likely to appear quite high
@ 24hseo my good friend
wow, i didnt notice about image seo, thanks for sharing
This thing has 2 Trackbacks
[...] 7 Simple Image SEO Best Practices that Lead to the Top of Google Image Search (tags: seo google) [...]
[...] geen specifieke afmetingen zijn om op de eerste plaats te komen. SEOblog geeft aan de grootte minimaal 250×300 moet zijn en dit lijkt te kloppen (slechts twee [...]