Image SEO

According to Forrester Research, images are 21 times more likely to show up in the first page of Google results. Although Google and the other search engines are great at finding relevant textual information, the search engines could use some help when it comes to images. In today’s SEM Tip of the Week, we will be outlining the basics of image SEO so that you can rank in the search engines.

        Image SEO

• Alt Text: Always make sure the alt text for an image is the keyword you wish to rank for. By using the keyword in the alt text, you send a signal to the search engines that the content of the image is keyword-related. Also make sure that the text is less than 140 characters, which shouldn’t be a problem if you are optimizing around one keyword.
• File Name: Ditto. Use keyword-centric file names to rank for a given keyword.
• Surrounding Text: By having a short description underneath or above the image, search engines are able to ascribe relevancy by proximity. It is important to use keyword-centric content around the image to help the search engines understand what they are missing.
• Inbound Links: Any and all anchor-text pointing to the page where the image is hosted should be keyword optimized. This will give positive signals to the search engines that the image relates to that keyword.
• Human Categorization: By categorizing images with related keywords, the search engines are given additional information about the content within the image.

Use these image SEO tips to rank on page one for your website’s pictures. Contact your SEO team for more information about image SEO, video SEO, and rich media SEO.