Optimizing Website Images for Search Engines

Optimizing the images of your website for search engines can be important if the data on your website is accompanied by images. There are several important factors to consider while undertaking this task. Some of the most important factors to ensure optimized search for the images of your web are discussed below:

Using keyword in the Alt text is very important in this regard, and this is missed by many web owners. Alt stands for alternative text.  A keyword or phrase that is relevant to the image should be added but stuffing it with too many words is not recommended. A simple and clean Alt text goes like this:

Never forget to use relevant names for your images. So, instead of some random names like a23.jpg, you should use the relevant name for the image which, for instance, can be yourname.jpg.  Use of underscores should, however, be avoided as much as possible.

Thirdly, your images should always be accompanied with the anchor texts. This means that you should use a keyword when linking to a specific image instead of using Click to view Full Size. Instead of this, use yourame.

Some other important things to consider in this regard are:

– Prefer .jpg over other image formats since it’s the most widely used format.

– Try to always use Social Site Tag for your images.

– Your image folder should be accessible to SE.

– Another good option is to re-upload your images at intervals to keep them fresh.

– Use reliable photo sharing hosting like Flickr or Picassa and tag your images. In case of little or no textual content, it would be more helpful to tag it using social tags like Technorati. It adds more weight to your image to help it rank better.

These are some of the most important and highly effective tips for search engine optimization for your website images.