Lyn Lomasi; All Rights Reserved
One of the often overlooked ways to be found online through SEO is with the ever-popular image search. Both Google Image Search and Bing Image Search receive massive amounts of daily traffic searching countless kinds of images. With photo-sharing tools like Pinterest, Flickr, and Instagram gaining in use every day, the amount of images on the internet has exploded in recent years.
So, getting your website found through image search is still a very workable way to attract visitors to your site. To do this, having high-quality images on your website is very important. While you can easily get away with having 300-pixel wide pictures on your website and get found through image search, the bigger your pictures, the better. This does not mean your website should become a veritable photo album, but what pictures you do have can be a valuable asset if they look something that's enticing to click on.
The most important thing to do with your online pictures is to make sure search engines know what they are. One way to do this is to give them file names that relate to the keywords that best describe them. For example, if you have a picture of a blue baby blanket (random example, I know) then you would want the file name of that picture to be blue-baby-blanket.jpg or something to that effect.
More importantly, be sure the alt text of that picture on your website reads "Blue Baby Blanket" with perhaps some additional details added after that. The more relevant you make your photo look to the image search engines, the more likely your picture with appear in the top sections of the image search results. (Side note: as of early 2020 'blue baby blanket' receives about 900 monthly searches on Google alone!)
Whatever pictures you have on your website should at least have title tags and alt text that describe them. File names are somewhat less important to many image search engines, but they are still relevant. If you don't have a lot of pictures that will work on your website, it's not a bad idea to post them on a Flickr account. Make sure that they have good captions and descriptions, as pictures on Flickr appear quite often in image search results. Also, don't forget people discover photos through Flickr's own search.
The Power of Pinterest as Its Own Image Search Engine
You can also upload your pictures to Pinterest and have them link back to an appropriate page on your website. While the Pinterest links have "nofollow" tags on them which prevent them from providing "link juice" back to your website, some curious Pinterest users may still click through anyhow, giving you free traffic to your site.
With Pinterest, it's best to add your logo and website address to the photo - it's free advertising! Like with Flickr,make sure your captions and descriptions are optimized for Pinterest's own search. Because Pinterest even recommends similar keywords to you when you search it, you can easily find phrases people are already searching Also, Pinterest pins get indexed in search engines, so these can be another way for people to discover you.
In any case, image search is still one of the best indirect ways to get found online. Who knows, if a searcher likes your image enough to click through, you could end up making a happy new fan. The additional keyword research will also help you rank better for terms you never would've though of before. Image search really can be your best friend when it comes to SEO!
So, getting your website found through image search is still a very workable way to attract visitors to your site. To do this, having high-quality images on your website is very important. While you can easily get away with having 300-pixel wide pictures on your website and get found through image search, the bigger your pictures, the better. This does not mean your website should become a veritable photo album, but what pictures you do have can be a valuable asset if they look something that's enticing to click on.
The most important thing to do with your online pictures is to make sure search engines know what they are. One way to do this is to give them file names that relate to the keywords that best describe them. For example, if you have a picture of a blue baby blanket (random example, I know) then you would want the file name of that picture to be blue-baby-blanket.jpg or something to that effect.
More importantly, be sure the alt text of that picture on your website reads "Blue Baby Blanket" with perhaps some additional details added after that. The more relevant you make your photo look to the image search engines, the more likely your picture with appear in the top sections of the image search results. (Side note: as of early 2020 'blue baby blanket' receives about 900 monthly searches on Google alone!)
Whatever pictures you have on your website should at least have title tags and alt text that describe them. File names are somewhat less important to many image search engines, but they are still relevant. If you don't have a lot of pictures that will work on your website, it's not a bad idea to post them on a Flickr account. Make sure that they have good captions and descriptions, as pictures on Flickr appear quite often in image search results. Also, don't forget people discover photos through Flickr's own search.
The Power of Pinterest as Its Own Image Search Engine
You can also upload your pictures to Pinterest and have them link back to an appropriate page on your website. While the Pinterest links have "nofollow" tags on them which prevent them from providing "link juice" back to your website, some curious Pinterest users may still click through anyhow, giving you free traffic to your site.
With Pinterest, it's best to add your logo and website address to the photo - it's free advertising! Like with Flickr,make sure your captions and descriptions are optimized for Pinterest's own search. Because Pinterest even recommends similar keywords to you when you search it, you can easily find phrases people are already searching Also, Pinterest pins get indexed in search engines, so these can be another way for people to discover you.
In any case, image search is still one of the best indirect ways to get found online. Who knows, if a searcher likes your image enough to click through, you could end up making a happy new fan. The additional keyword research will also help you rank better for terms you never would've though of before. Image search really can be your best friend when it comes to SEO!
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