Optimizing For Google Image Searches

Most people know how to do SEO for Google's main search function, but doing SEO for Google Image Search is a bit different. If you've got a lot of images you want to make certain Google Image Search picks up, here are some tips to make those images attract Google's attention. Many of these tips also work with MSN's and Yahoo's image search functions.

Google's Image Search is done by the Google Image bot. This little web spider goes out and indexes images, much like the main search bot indexes web pages. However, the image bot doesn't visit pages nearly as frequently. In fact, it might hit a website once every six months or so. This means if you put up new images the day after the bot visits, those images may not be indexed for half a year!

So how can you make certain your images are picked up and ranked well? By knowing how to appeal to this little image bot, that's how. First, remember that the Google bot doesn't actually see your image - it doesn't know the visual different between a black square and the Mona Lisa. What it does see is your description of the image, so you have to make certain that description is incredibly well done. There are four things to work on here.

The first is your ALT text. This is the text that appears on your site if, for whatever reason, your image does not load. Basically, you want it to describe your image in detail. Be sure to get several keywords into the ALT text. For example, a floral site may describe a bouquet of red roses with ALT text similar to "This beautiful bouquet of red roses can be delivered to anyone in San Francisco, CA, from Amy's Flowers." This gets the city and name of the flower store into the text.

The image filename is also important. Don't simply name that image of the red roses as roses1.gif or something similar. Name it something a bit more descriptive like red-rose-bouquet-1. No, it may not seem that much different, but its actually does help.

The surrounding text of an image can also help Google learn what the image is about. Add captions below your images to give the search bots yet another line of text to read, and try to work in something about the image into the nearby text if possible.

Finally, Google will take a look at your overall page theme too. If you add some Google AdSense ads to your site, you'll see exactly what Google thinks of your site, including its main focus and its location. If these ads don't seem to fit with your services or products, it may be a sign that you need to re-evaluate your keywords.

A few other things relevant to images:

Google won't count images done in slide shows or shown via any sort of script. Try to avoid using these if possible.

Put all of your images in one folder on your website, and don't change that folder name. If you do, Google may not know where your images have moved to.

Don't do optimization work on template images or on images you use as a background. These aren't really useful to searchers, and there's no point in doing work on them. Do the same for any images you use for buttons and other background items. Do, however, do SEO work on your company logo and on your banners since users may search for them.