Image Gallery Optimization Tips

If you have a large number of images to incorporate in your website, then using an image gallery can avoid cluttering the length of pages. The following points will make your image optimization job pretty easy and also improve your on page SEO score.

1. Image File Naming

Adding suitable keyword names to images is an important step in gallery page optimization. Don’t give generic names like image 1, left image, right image etc. or even append image with too lengthy names.Also, images should be in JPEG, GIF or PNG formats.

2. Categorize Image Sets

Categorize your images by adding headings (<h2>, <h3>, <h4>) depending on the heading hierarchy of your site. Adding the <h> tags and formatting to the CSS and using it for the image categories will complement your SEO efforts.

3. Using Power ALT Tags

The text in your Alt Tag text is a crucial metric as far as search engines are concerned. Alt texts tell search engines and other technologies what the image is about. If images are lost or fail to display, the alt text takes its place. So make it a practice to append a descriptive text line along with every image in your web pages.

For additional information here is a good read from Google Webmaster Central:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=114016&ctx=sibling

Techcrunch has confirmed via a Google spokesperson that the testing rumors are true.

Benefits to Google's instant search feature:

Firstly, this provides real-time feedback for both Google and end-users. This in turn helps Google to understand and analyze what the end user is looking for. Also, not only will the user get an idea on probable search results in an instantaneous manner, but helps refine their search results too. Secondly, if wrong instant results are displayed, the user can continue trying variations.

On the other hand, with each keystroke a whole page full of search results loads. This will increase the bandwidth amount each user uses. So if the new feature is made live, it would help if those without broadband connections can disable it.

Since Microsoft is equipping its search engine Bing with a multitude of features, Google has to continue bringing out new innovative features to its monumental search interface to remain king!

Google Search Quality Strategist Kaspar Szymanski says that,

“It's important to clarify that any legitimate link building strategy is a long-term effort. There are those who advocate for short-lived, often spammy methods, but these are not advisable if you care for your site's reputation. Buying PageRank-passing links or randomly exchanging links are the worst ways of attempting to gather links and they're likely to have no positive impact on your site's performance over time. If your site's visibility in the Google index is important to you it's best to avoid them.”

Some tips for improving Link Quality on Google:

Tip 1- Leveraging Social Media

This is the first step to engage your site and services to the online community. This includes participating and contributing in blogs and forums. Google reiterates that engaging your online community via Social Media is the best way to get quality links.

Quality of content is a strong factor in deciding your status in the world of Social Media. Also, it’s a powerful way for building reputation online. This can be represented graphically as:

Tip 2-Providing Helpful Content

Google suggests us to create content which solves potential problems. Such content can be created via tutorials, PowerPoint presentations, surveys, practical tools, research findings, and videos. Users who find this worthy will spread it among other community members and friends. This ultimately gains you reputation and credibility. Yet another great way to automatically obtain quality links!

Tip 3- Offer Entertaining Content

Creating entertaining content allows a very good chance for your Internet Presence to go ‘Viral. Since more and more humorous and entertaining content is winning the hearts of online users (I would like to mention the most famous video on Youtube Charlie bits my finger) this would be a slippery terrain for companies and professional service providers.

Tip 4- Submitting To Topical Directories

Google suggests webmasters to focus on submitting to directories which are topical and well-structured.

Summing up, Google sends a strong signal to webmasters and SEO offpage specialists to always focus on giving importance to the quality of links pointing to your site.

What is Geo-Targeted SEO?

Geo-Targeted SEO is optimizing niche keywords based on location. Some of the advantages for Geo-Targeted SEO are:

• Expanding your clientele and services
• Eliminating unwanted traffic
• Increasing your local Leads = More conversions
• Reaching your targeted audience

Planning a Geo-Targeted SEO Campaign

To get started with a Geo-Targeted SEO campaign, you have to find Geo-Targeted Keywords. This plan can be crafted by following this structure:

1. Finding Geo-Targeted Keywords

You can either use search suggestion option of search engines or any popular local search trending tools like Google keyword Suggestion Tool.

2. Adding Geo-location Specific Landing Pages

Geo-Targeted Landing Pages assist you with converting traffic into leads based on location. For eg: If you’re a lawyer practicing ‘personal injury law’ in Toronto area, then you can consider having pages with URI’s – Site.com/Injury-Lawyers-Toronto or Site.com/Toronto- Injury-Lawfirm

3. Enable Geo-Tagging in Meta Content

Geo-Tagging is a great way to add exact location to the information you are working with. Below is an example of how to code your Meta Tags to be ‘Geo-Tag friendly’

<meta name="geo.position" CONTENT="49.2;-123.4"> (latitude, longitude)
<meta name="geo.placename" CONTENT="London, Ontario"> (city, State/Province)
<meta name="geo.region" CONTENT="CA-ON"> (Country, State/Province)
<meta name="ICBM" content="49.2;-123.4"> (latitude, longitude)

Geo-Targeting is definitely a great tool-set to add to your overall SEO process, so keep your eyes on our blog for future tips on how to best strengthen your Geo-Targeted SEO Campaign.

Before I get started, just take a look at what Google has to say on Caffeine update:

“With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresh information than ever before — no matter when or where it was published.”

Also Google made it very clear that ‘Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index’. Speed and accuracy are the underlying factors behind Caffeine which equips Google to crawl and analyze web pages faster.

Caffeine was developed to accomodate the changing search landscape and is the largest reservoir of content Google has ever offered. The new indexing system has been built to update itself faster, more accurately and more frequently to ensure that your search results are not only relevant, but timely as well. This assures nothing but more accurate real-time results.

A Quick Summary Of Google Caffeine Improvements

• Websites with frequently updated content will receive more favourable attention. Thus giving more importance to fresh and relevant content on SEO campaigns.
• Google is now showing more real time content in SERPs.
• Greater web search relevancy.

What Have We Noticed Since Caffeine?

We have noticed that the least impacted sites in the rankings have a common similarity.  They update content regularly.  This means at least once every few weeks.  The more the merrier! Our SEO research crew is paying close attention and will have a more definitive list to release in the next month.

In the end, Caffeine is basically described as it is in the name - a hopped up Google!

Another interesting tidbit of this acquisition is Freebase, the entity graph free open database of Metaweb. “Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data. We believe that by improving Freebase, it will be a tremendous resource to make the web richer for everyone.” said Jack Menzel.

What is Metaweb

Metaweb Technologies founded in 2005 is a San Francisco based open database facilitator which allows site owners, publishers and developers to easily and intelligently integrate content from across the Web. Metaweb maintains a strong content integration network with regularly updated database. Bloggers, site owners, developers can make use of this third party open data source for improving their site’s content structure. Metaweb has information on over 11 million things, including movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and more. Freebase is another web property of Metabase which connects entities together as graph where anyone can contribute data. Each data has got a unique ID which distinguishes each entity. An entity can be people/places/or thing. You can read the story of Metaweb Joins Google from Freebase Blog too.

Search is Getting Smarter!

Definitely, Metaweb’s semantic data storage technology will further empower Google in offering a smarter search experience. Big ‘G’ is tapping into all the possible ways to continue their search market share.  By pocketing Metaweb Google has added a promising addition to its arsenal.

Google has been using SSL encryption for its services like Gmail, Google Docs and other services in the past, but not in the actual Google search. While this is a major step from Google to offer users enhanced privacy, it does cause some serious concerns for internet marketers and web analytics professionals. As you may know, secured search stops traffic source info, which means if a user is using a secured search version then referrer data is not being sent. This can cause potential effects on SEM campaigns, especially in getting the ‘most searched terms’ in short keywords. 

Analyzing the most searched terms used in browsers, is a very important step used in SEO keyword research. Enabling of SSL encryption removes this ability, as there is no referrer data being sent. If that is the case then analytical tools will not be able to register search term details used by searchers for executing searches. By restricting the referrer information, I suppose web marketers and business owners are going to lose very valuable data used to measure the effectiveness of the search environment as well as PPC campaigns.

Now the million dollar question in the minds of many is – Will Google Analytics be able to fetch referrer data from SSL Google? Hmmmmm…

Associated Content is a U.S.-centric content generating company having 3,80,000 contributors, who produce articles on various topics in an advanced SEO fashion. As soon as the deal is signed, these contributors will be a part of Yahoo!. Also Yahoo! has plans to expand the reach of Associated Content globally. With this new move Yahoo! we wonder how this will effect the search engine game. Another interesting fact to share is Associated Content’s CEO Patrick Keane is an ex- Googler!

Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo! Inc. the deal a ‘game changer’. She continues,

"Combining our world-class editorial team with Associated Content's makes this a game-changer," said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo! Inc. "Together, we'll create more content around what we know our users care about, and open up new and creative avenues for advertisers to engage with consumers across our network. These are important aspects of building, engaging consumer experiences on Yahoo!, and one of the reasons why we're one of the most visited destinations online."

How Associated Content Acquisition Helps Yahoo!

Once the acquisition formalities are done, (mostly by the third quarter of 2010), Yahoo! will have the advantages of;

• Expanding its niche content verticals further.
• Getting more topics for its media sites and up-to-date information from users.
• Producing content directly in response to audience needs.
• By providing advertiser-specific content, Yahoo! can find a better revenue stream through Associated Content.
• Improving its SEO comparative to other content gamers.
• Can further strengthen its presence in the display ad market.

Yahoo!, which is losing its ground in the search engine landscape, is badly looking for a break. If the reports are correct Yahoo! has judiciously spent its $100 as an effort to claw back in the search engine game. Furthermore, the Associated Content acquisition will power Yahoo! to place pressure on fellow online content gamers like Demand Media, AOL Seed etc. Hopefully, Yahoo!’s new venture will bolster them for better visibility in search maps and thus they will move back into the search engine market share competition.  I am not holding my breath!

This new feature allows you to formulate search queries in your own language. You can find this new small keyboard icon on the right of the search box (except in Arabic) of the Google search homepage or search result page. Clicking on this button will bring up a virtual keyboard that can be controlled either by using your computer keyboard or by clicking on the virtual keys on the virtual keyboard  itself.

This facility is available in 35 languages including Alabanian, Croatian, Greek, Arabic, Thai. Virtual keyboard can be helpful for people who use one of the many non-Latin script-based languages that require special characters such as Arabic, Greek, and Thai. For those who want to experiment with it here is Google’s step by step explanation on how to use the virtual keyboard.

Practical Uses For Google Keyboard

Suppose you are away on a holiday in Thailand, and you want to browse to get some information.  The keyboard however, looks completely foreign to you as it is in the local language. This is where the Google virtual keyboard saves you.  Now all you need to do is use the virtual keyboard (as long as your language is one among the 35 which supports the virtual keyboard facility.) 

With this small addition Google has made a big difference to the search experience for both the non-English user and the English user that is searching in foreign areas. As you can see – Google continues to organize the world's information!

The reigning search engine giant Google has added another feather to its cap with the purchase of UK based mobile visual search start up Plink. This news was officially announced through Plink’s blog, but the acquisition amounts were not disclosed anywhere so far. This may be Google’s first ever acquisition in the UK. Once again the search leader reiterates its aim to acquire at least one company a month. 

Plink’s blog stated that:

“Google has already shown that it’s serious about investing in this space with Google Goggles, and for the Plink team the opportunity to take our algorithms to Google-scale was just too exciting to pass up.”

What is Plink Anyway?

Housed in Oxford England, Plink is a two person initiative ventured by PhD students Mark Cummins and James Philbin. They were comfortably positioned in the Google Goggles project base in Santa Monica, California as per the take over terms.  Google Goggles team is the one specializing in the visual search project for the search giant.  The founders said that Plink has also held discussions with British galleries including the Tate over potential partnerships.

Plinkart is the first product from this venture which is a mobile application. Enabling you to identify paintings and artworks with just a snap from your phone’s camera. Also, users can then share the photo with friends and also click through to buy a print. Plinkart, launched just 6 weeks ago and was so popular it is reported that the application has been downloaded more than 50,000 times within this short span of time. The application, which only works on the Android operating system, will still be available but not updated.

This purchasing gives Google the ability to improve its video and photo search ability. The visual search engines of today seem to have limitations as they don't actually search for photos and videos on the Internet. Instead they search the language used by web publishers for describing  their images and videos. If Google can overcome this shortcoming by further developing Plink’s technology, it will certainly be a landmark victory for Google not only in opening up a powerful visual search engine but also in building a major ad stream.

A small purchase for the likes of Google but another opportunity that Google doesn't wish to squander!