More SEO for ‘Tim Gregory’ – SEO for Google image search
It’s been called ‘the last SEO frontier’ for SEO because it’s frequently ignored, but for those in the know and who take the time to optimize their images for search engines, it can be a rich source of traffic.
And for those who want a high position for their own names (like me), it’s important to get an image or 2 into the top 5 so that you’re more likely to appear on the front page of the Google SERPs. It will take a while before I rank for Tim for a first-name only search, but it’s not impossible to get onto the first page for that either.
So here is a photo of Tim Gregory that has never been placed online before to see if I can get it to rise up through the SERPs for image search.
Let’s see how that ranks for an image search for Tim Gregory. From what I’ve read, the crawlers take a long time to crawl images, so I may have to wait a while for results.
There is a fair amount of advice out there on SEO blogs on optimizing for placement in Google image searches, but much of it is contradictory and almost every list of tips has it’s own unique take on the subject.
I’ve tried to assemble some of the pointers that made the most sense to me, and where there was some agreement between the SEO commentators.
Use a suitable page title and headline
The title and main headline on the page should line up with the image name.
In the case of this blog post, I’ve used Tim Gregory in the title, headline, and image name.
Use Alt and Title tags
Make use of alt and title tags within your img tags. Don’t stuff them with keywords, but use a few relevant words or a short key phrase that describes the image
Post relevant caption text
Place some text describing the image close to the image with the keyword/words you are trying to associate with the image.
Some commentators say that putting the image and caption inside the same div, span or table cell will help the Google bot connect the image and the caption.
Name your image correctly, and choose a suitable file type
Use your keywords delimited by hyphens inside the image name. Keep the total number of words used below 5. Create the filename in the format “word1-word2-word3.png”
Use .png if possible, followed by .jpg and .gif
Link to your images
Link to images with keywords in the anchor text and a suitable title
Anyone else tried ranking for images and have some advice on the subject?
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