SEO Tip 1: Image Searches
SEO TRICKS: Using Image Searches to Your Blog’s Benefit
Checking your site’s statistics on a regular (if not daily) basis is extremely useful for determining just how people are arriving at your website via searches. I have been surprised to find that a lot of my traffic arrives via Google image searches. So how do we make the most of this?
If you wish to use an existing image on the web, the first trick is to download and re-size the image. By simply opening the image in Photoshop, you can save the image as a larger file (jpeg) than what it previously was. The result is that if someone does a relevant image search and clicks on the “large” option, your version of the pic is more likely to show up first in searches, and may result in a click-through.
The second step is to tag your images cleverly and ensure that these match with the context of your post and/or post headline. For example, in a post titled How to Photoshop your photos, the accompanying image (below) has been both re-sized and renamed to “Photoshop Before and After.” The keyword “photoshop” has also been used within the alternative text and description of the image.
Photoshop Before and After
Photoshop tends to judge, so touch up your human subjects. This is a bit of an extreme example.
It is also useful to provide a sub-heading and caption with your images – each containing the same keyword(s). Ideally the same tags should appear in your post headline as well.
Picture Posts
It seems to be very difficult to get picture posts publicity on the web due to their text-free nature. However, by applying the same methods above, your picture posts are far more likely to be found via Google image searches. As an extra insurance, provide a short splurb with each each image – over and above the sub headings and captions – and fuel these with relevant search tags.
That’s all for now. Next time we’ll look at promoting your posts via social media.
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Solid tips Galen!
Google is busy working on advanced OCR (Optical character recognition). Soon enough they will be able to read most of the text found in images and use it for indexing.