image-optimization-search-engines A potentially beneficial yet gravely underused area in the search engine optimization realm is image optimization. While site owners and merchants see their images show up in the regular search results, few understand the real benefits of image search optimization. This post aims to throw some light on the importance of image optimization.

What is an Image Search?

An Image Search is query results, accompanied by thumbnail graphics and contextual information, that best match users’ search queries. Such information can be generated and submitted by the image creator, by the owner of the site containing the image, or by third party reviewers. Most of the search engines have a dedicated image searching option and the BIG ones even integrate images into some contextual search results.

The Need for Image Optimization

If you are not optimizing your images then you are missing out. Image search is the fastest growing vertical in the search arena today growing at 90% every year with over 360,000,000 searches per month across the top search engines. Besides, optimizing images offers the following advantages:

  • Free product promotion
  • More optimization opportunities than regular search alone. Photo sharing and social image sharing sites have more contextual clues that search engines can use for their ranking criteria.
  • Less competition. Image search is a widely underused area for retailers.

Tips for Image Optimization

  • Always use original images. This allows you as the retailer to present the product in the best possible way that will convert with your own audience, and also to present the features in a different way than other competitors.
  • Start off with good quality pictures, and make necessary resolution adjustments between your full size images and your thumbnails. Pictures with good contrast tend to attract more people clicking and linking to them.
  • Saving images as JPGs and GIFs provides better opportunity to get your images spidered.
  • The image names should match what is actually represented in the file.  Search engines will read that name and use this information.
  • The ALT text should be there with a good description. Ensure it has relevant keywords in the description, and dont list too much text or it will lack weight. 
  • Image search is not just for retailers directly reaching customers, so be broad in the subject matter to get an expanded audience.
  • Optimize the page with the image. Match your ALT tag with the content that surrounds your photo so that they work together to inform the search engines of the content of the photo
  • Create an image folder in your site’s hosting environment that’s accessible to the search engines for proper file organization.

 

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