Embrace Your Images in Search Engine Optimization

Perhaps the most untapped search engine optimization tool is the optimization of your images. But how do you go about using your images to boost your search engine rankings? Here's how.

You know all about keywords, metadata, link popularity, H1 tags, strong text and the like. Armed with this knowledge, you go about optimizing your web site, only to discover that you still aren't getting the organic search engine visibility that you desire. Perplexed, you wonder why.

You know just enough to be dangerous. To yourself, that is. The term sophomoric comes to mind. From the Greek, sophos (meaning "wise"), and moros (meaning "fool", as in "moron"), perhaps you are a "wise fool".

But wait. Before you get in a snit about being given the appellation wise fool, let's figure out how to get rid of the moros while keeping the sophos.

Likely, one of your biggest problems is the failure to properly optimize your images for search engines. To understand how performing search engine optimization on your images is done, let us first take a look at how search engines ascertain the contents of an image.

It is important to remember that search engines don't see images the way humans do. Images are nothing more than bits of code which tell a computer what color and brightness at which to display any given pixel. While preliminary research has been done in the field of image recognition by search engines, the algorithms are rudimentary at best, doing nothing more than an analysis of colors and brightness, without any real progress being made at identifying the depiction contained within the image.

Therefore, search engines rely on two main algorithms for the identification of the contents of an image. The first is dependent on a contextual analysis, the second is dependent upon what we tell the search engines.

Contextual analysis of images

The contextual analysis of images is primarily based upon (1) the subject matter of the page and (2) the text immediately before, after, or surrounding the image (also known as a caption). Absent any additional information, a search engine will assume that an image on a web page is an image related to the general content of that page, with greater emphasis placed on the text in the immediate vicinity of the image. From an seo perspective, we will assume that your content is already optimized for your desired keyphrases, so (1) above doesn't do much for us. However, a bit of a rankings boost may be obtained by ensuring that your images (regardless of what they are really of) contain keyphrase rich content around them.

However, the real power of images in search engine optimization is found in what we tell the search engines. There are two important techniques for the optimization of images in this manner, which will without a doubt give your site a rankings boost.

Telling the search engines about your images

The first important technique is known as descriptive file naming. A search engine gives much weight to the name of the image file. So, for example, if you are RCA and you have a logo image of a dog with its ear in a gramophone, you might name the image gramophone.jpg or dog.jpg. This is telling the search engines that your image contains content related to dogs or gramophones.

But wait again.

This is also telling the search engines that your web page is about dogs or gramophones. If you are RCA, wouldn't you rather be ranked for a term such as "consumer electronics"? Probably. So, utilizing descriptive file naming, you would want to give your image files names which reflect the general topic of your web site. So, instead of naming the image logo.jpg, banner.gif, dog.jpg, gramophone.jpg, or the like, you would want to name your image something like consumer-electronics-logo.jpg or consumer_electronics_dog.jpg. Now you are using keyphrase rich file names, and giving your site a rankings boost.

The other major way you tell a search engine about your images is via the utilization of image ALT attributes. An ALT atrribute is simple ALTernate text which is used to describe the image. Instead of putting words like "Dog listening to gramophone" in your ALT attribute, you should look at ALT attributes as another opportunity to include your keyphrases on your page. So, we would want the ALT attribute in the case of RCA to say something like "Consumer Electronics".

The failure to properly optimize images in this manner is a major flaw in many attempts at search engine optimization. Following these techniques will, undoubtedly, help your online business to achieve the organic search engine visibility you desire.

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About the author:

Matt Foster is the President of ArteWorks Business Class, http://www.arteworks.biz, and is an expert in search engine optimization. Mr. Foster has been active in the industry since 1995.

For further information, or to begin the process of optimizing your site for search engines, please contact Mr. Foster toll free at 877-812-2217, or by email to matt@arteworks.biz.





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