How To Optimize Images For Search Engines, Social Media and People
Optimize your images for search engines:
- Keywords in alt text, text around the image, image name, page title;
- Preferred image formatting – jpg;
- Separate SE accessible image folder;
- Image freshness. (SEW suggests re-uploading your images to keep them fresh);
- Enabled image search option at Google webmaster tool.
- Reasonable image file size (see the discussion at WW)
- Limited number of images per page;
- Popular and reliable photo sharing hosting (e.g. Flickr is reported to help in Yahoo! image optimization).
Optimize your images for social media:
- (obvious) use really great images to give your readers another reason to spread the word;
- (to get Digg thumbnailed submission) stick to jpg format and make sure the images can be resized to (or already are) 160×120 or 160×160 pixels (Unless you have an image that can be resized that way Digg will not offer the submitter a thumbnail to go with the post).
Optimize your images for people:
- People pay more attention to a clear image where they can see details (choose high quality images).
- (Clean, clear) faces in an image get more eye fixation. (don’t use abstract images too often).
- Keep them relevant: images are not the first thing a visitor sees on a web page but they can compel him to stay (according to the eye-tracking research web text is prior to images; when looking at a printed article people see images first; with web page they see text first – nevertheless images make the visitor stay and remember the page via relevant associations).
Gender specific:
- women are better at recognizing facial emotions than men (research):
- men seem to be more likely than women to first look at faces rather than other parts of a nude body (source);
- women are more interested in images with more than one person (source).
Tools and fun for image optimization:
- SEO Friendly Images WP Plugin – automatically optimize image ALT and TITLE with the help of post “%title†variable;
- Play with Google Images labeling (and help improve the quality of Google image search).
How to find images online.
- Finding Stock Photos – lists 3 great resources for stock photos;
- A Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images – describing (1) which Flickr images you are allowed to use; (2) tactics to quickly find best images.
Post image: Feeling lucky punk?
Related posts:
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67 Responses to “How To Optimize Images For Search Engines, Social Media and People”
Great read. Thanks for the write up Ann.
By Brian Chappell on Mar 15, 2008
i always thought these are images you see first when entering the site. i didn’t know text is prior to images! very interesting
By Troj on Mar 16, 2008
Thanks for the great information! [stumbled]
By mark on Mar 16, 2008
@Brian, @Troj, @Mark and everyone – thank you for the thumbs up!
By Ann Smarty on Mar 17, 2008
Very good posting I really appreciate. According to me the best way is alt tag for promoting images but today I learns other thing is well thanx for shering with us.
By Unsecured Loans on Mar 17, 2008
thanks for the mention, it’s so nice that know that I thought these are good images.
By Ethan on Mar 18, 2008
Thanks for the idea.
By Seo Company India on Mar 19, 2008
Thanks for sharing the tips on how to optimize images for search engines. Very informative Post.
Bookmarked!
nhick
http://www.itrush.com
By ITrush on Mar 22, 2008
Haven’t done controlled tests yet, but a few more ideas:
* try hotlinking the images, or even copying to another site (don’t change filename or edit it or md5sum will change)
* place within same block level HTML elements as keywords
* use the word “photo” in the alt text
By Pocket SEO on Mar 23, 2008
Thanks for the idea.
By Mitesh Patel on Mar 24, 2008
If you have a page which is talkin about famous people them image optimization techniques can be extremely useful and good ranking can drive a lot fo traffic to your site.
By Affordable Search Engine Optimization on Apr 16, 2008
very good information..
By Aswani on May 21, 2008
Good resource, thanks.
By gestalt therapy on May 26, 2008
Nice organization and referencing, Ann!
By Brian Carter on May 26, 2008
Noway is jpg prefered. All my images are png. Will they still appear in google images at all?
http://www.reabo.co.uk
By ricky on Jul 6, 2008
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By mukesh on Oct 1, 2008
Hi Webmaster,
We can do directory and article submission. If you are interested to deal with us . you can provide submission work to us . We will promise, your work will complete in best way (in good page Rank Directory). we will give you complete work with in proper time period. We can do work both salary and commission base. please help me .
We are waiting your positive response
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By mukesh on Oct 1, 2008
Nice tips, must follow now,
Thanks,
Happy new year.
By cuocthiseo on Dec 26, 2008
Nice and wonderful posting, thanks for giving the information.
By Hanu Software on Mar 18, 2009
I’m just wondering why my images on picasa got a good position on image search? While i haven’t used any method mention above.
By Bibokz on Apr 13, 2009
Re-uploading your images? Never would have thought of that.
And… info on where to find free images.
Great post, thanks for all the work.
Keith D
By Keith D on Apr 20, 2009
Thanks for the idea.
By France casinos on May 15, 2009
Good resource, thanks.
By Unibet poker on May 19, 2009
Ann
Your “how to find images online” is useful.. I’m always looking for good quality, eye catching free images.
Thanks
By Bill Simcox on May 23, 2009
So usefull! Nice post thanks for sharing and good idea lol …
By parier internet on May 25, 2009
Thanks for giving the information.
By Bonus Betclic on Jun 2, 2009
Thanks for the great info! I have a bunch of amazing images that I’m getting ready to upload!!!
By Maldives Dive Travel on Jun 9, 2009
nice article. very informative.
By Web Design Mumbai on Jul 8, 2009
I understand that you should optimize images, but do they help your SE rankings?
By Blogbal on Jul 9, 2009
Thanks, this is super helpful. Tagging images is normally an SEO technique that is often forgotten.
Online Marketing Consultant
By envirocycle composter on Jul 15, 2009
Nice information for seo beginners. I will apply this trick in blog for images.Lets see will it work or not.
By Rocky on Aug 5, 2009
I was wondering how you get people to link back to your site/image as a reference under the Creative Commons license.
Is there a way to mention or promote that others may use your image, but they need to link back?
Thank you for any replies. I enjoy reading your blog and often find it in search results. Nice work!
By Jeff Swanson on Sep 10, 2009
@Jeff, the only way is to ask I guess. I’ve seen quite a few images on Flickr with descriptions asking to use the image and link to some page. I guess it is pretty effective.
By Ann Smarty on Sep 11, 2009
That is really good stuff provided.
thanks
By Web development lucknow on Sep 16, 2009
Hi Anne,
At work, someone proposed that we make sure all our images are housed on the same domain.
Currently, it’s like this:
domain: http://www.subclassmaincompany.com
Our images are on a mount:
images.maincompany.com/subclass/img/foobar_image.jpg
For some reason, someone in the company thinks that we are hurting ourselves by hosting images on the mount.
In my view, we only care about images as a way to get users to our site — for branding purposes and for potential conversion.
We also care about them in terms of adding rich information about what the page is about.
for that reason, I support the initiative to change the image names to something more meaningful than a catalog number.
But it seems that moving the image mount to the domain, under the misaprehension that image URLs transfer link juice or something, is something of a waste of time.
What do you think?
Thank you for your time.
By Kelley on Oct 1, 2009
@Kelley, I really don’t thin you should change the names as you don’t need to rank in Google image search. Why waste time?
By Ann Smarty on Oct 8, 2009
Thanks for these image optimization tips
I used some of them here: http://www.glowingfaceman.com/blog/engrish-goldmine-2/
By Glowing Face Man on Nov 13, 2009
Very good article. Some thing new for seo. Never hear before. Thanks for information.
By Aditya Infotech on Nov 16, 2009
nice good article. Some thing new for seo
By seospell on Nov 16, 2009
I will be following these tips, as in the past i was uploading png images. But i will use jpg only
By Gaurav on Nov 19, 2009
Nice information about image optimization for search engines & Social Media
By Web Development on Nov 30, 2009
Well written article about how to image optimization. Thanks for your valuable information
By Website Designing India on Dec 1, 2009
Nice article, thanks.
I was looking to know if .PNG images hurt SEO in any way though. I get that it’s suggested to use JPG so I guess PNG images won’t help, but would they in any way negatively impact your seo? Which is better, 50 .PNG images on a page or none at all?
By Antivirus Software on Jan 7, 2010
I don’t think .png images will get you in any kind of a trouble…
By Ann Smarty on Jan 8, 2010
I run a freight website, quick question how long should the ALT text be on my photos is it good to have short, long or other on my ALT texts, Cheers
By Chris on Feb 4, 2010
Excellent I have just reviewed all my Alt tabs , many thanks Simon
By Simon on Feb 5, 2010
@Chris, I believe the shorter, the better. This way you give more focus on important keywords.
By Ann Smarty on Feb 5, 2010
Excellent article very interesting, thanks for the information.
By betclic.fr on Mar 10, 2010