Entry Level Search Optimization for Images

Search engines are machines that can’t interpret a visual image like a brain can. But they make inferences about images using a couple of factors:

• Alt (or alternate text) attributes of the image tag in the HTML code
• Text surrounding the image (text and comments on the page, image tags, etc)
• Filename of the image (image.jpg)

Read more about the Photographer’s SEO Book that gives search engine optimization (SEO) tips for photography websites. Perfect for beginners with splash pages or photo website templates like SmugMug or BluDomain.

How Do I Edit Alt Attributes (or alternate text)?

To understand how Google looks at images watch this helpful Google video. It says that you can easily help Google understand what your images are about by using alt tags for all your images.  If you have access to the HTML code of your pages, simply add the alt and title attributes to your image tags as seen here.

<img src=”/image.jpg” alt=”Short description of the image”>

If you use a template or blog service, then often times the image caption or description will be used as the alt and title attributes. Check with your website provider to see how it generates these. Needless to say that every field offered in your system for images should be used, and used carefully, because it can help your SEO efforts.

Photographer Tips for alt attributes

• Use short complete sentences that describe the image
• Focus on minor (less competitive keywords). For example a family photographer might use alt phrases like “Easter Photos in the Park” or “Lake Family Reunion Pictures of the Smiths”
• Do NOT load keywords or use a list of comma delimited keywords

A Note About Photo Captions and SEO

Below is the image of this ebook cover in my WordPress blog. You can see I paid attention to everything from the filename to the image description and varied the text in each without overloading the keywords. It is natural flowing text that helps describe the image. Also notice that underneath the Caption field it tells me that this field is used as alternate text, so the coding part is done for me.

Photographers SEO Book Glossy Cover Photo

The text you use in the alt attribute has a multiplication affect because it counts as text on the page, adds keyword credit when the image is linked, and may help your images appear in Google image searches.

Page Text Helps Image Search Rank

In addition to the alt attribute, Google can interpret the images on a page by reading text surrounding an image. In photo galleries where little text may be available, it is critically important to use all your available resources to help Google. Here are some examples of page text photographers rarely take advantage of in galleries that definitely help images rank in searches:

• Gallery or image comments. User comments add content to your page without you doing any work. In a natural sounding way, comments often use words people are searching for that you may not have thought about!

• Image keywords or tags. Sites like Flickr, SmugMug and WordPress aggregate pages and photos based on the keyword tags you assign to them. Not only do these tags appear as text on the page, but the master sites (like http://www.smugmug.com/browse/) create links to you using these keywords. This is the best way to get ranked in search engines, so make sure to use the most popular keywords available (ones that big websites want to create links for).

• Image captions. As previously mentioned, some services use captions as the alternative text as well in addition to text on the page.

Tagged as: beginning SEO, captions, Image SEO, keywords