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08.23.10 Optimizing Your Images For SEO  By Rene LeMerle SEO is all too often focused on text based web page strategies, but the modern web is made up of more that just words on a page. So how do you ensure the media on your website is supporting your SEO? Below are checklists and guides to help you include images, videos and audio into your SEO strategy and increase your exposure across more search verticals. Image SEO: How to Optimize Images for Search Engines Image SEO is the most obvious strategy that is overlooked by website owners. Give the number of images that most websites contain, it's a tactic that you should give serious consideration to: • Filenames Your image files names are a good place to start your image SEO. Name your images according to your keyword focus and avoid generic image names e.g. picture1.jpg • Alt tags When embedding images in your web page, you can add alternative text for images via the alt tag - e.g. <img src="http://www.domain.com/yourimage.jpg" alt="keyword rich title"> • Contextual copy & Captions Search engines still aren't clever enough to look at images, so they use the content around them to understand the context and relevance. So content richness is important for your image SEO. • Sitemap The major search engines like Google allow you to specify images via your xml sitemap. This assists them in indexing pictures through their image search. Check Google's image sitemap guidefor details: • Syndicate images While its important to get your direct image optimization right first, to really get benefits from your important images, it's important to get listed on important content sites e.g flickr as they'll improve the chances of your content getting indexed in Google Video SEO: How to Improve Your Video Rankings Video is growing in popularity and is now an important part of many businesses' online marketing strategies. If you use video for your business, follow these steps to ensure your video is supporting your SEO plan. • Text transcripts and associated copy Search engines can't watch your videos to understand what they're about, so when you embed a video on your webpage make sure you surround it with relevant copy or transcripts of the video. • Use hosting services (multiples) Whether you host your own videos or not, you should syndicate your videos to as many major video sharing sites as possible. Your video is more likely to appear in Google results from their site than your own (in most cases). Continue reading this article. About the Author: Rene is the marketing manager of ineedhits.com - a global search engine marketing company. He also leads the marketing for Gooruze.com - a web 2.0 style community for online and digital marketers. Rene has been in the industry since 1997 with much of that time spent helping businesses embrace the best of the internet and digital world. |
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