» 9 Ways of Optimizing your Site for Image Search

Picture Yourself at the Top Major search engines now have their own image-search functions that provide image-search listings in regular Web-search results, writes Pandia Search Engine News in a recent article. And although searchers may have different reasons for using image-search engines, all of those searchers may be potential customers, subscribers, or readers. So, if you haven't already done so, now is the time to Say Cheese! Some basic advice: If you want your images to rank higher than others for a particular keyword phrase, you must first help the search engine understand what the image is about, Pandia notes. It offers these tips for attracting image-search visitors to your site: Use descriptive file names. Make sure that the file name describes the image with keyword phrases searchers are likely to use. And actively use HTML Alt tags. When adding an image, make sure you use the description field in your blog- or content-publishing software to describe it within its own tag. Add descriptive text close to the picture. Search engines look at the text closest to the image to determine the context for the image. Put the photos within articles and blog posts. Search engines have a tendency to ignore images in sidebars and other places where they can be interpreted as ads or navigational elements. Use the social photo sites. Upload your images to photo-hosting sites like Flickr.com. Add links back to the relevant page on your site. The Po!nt: Picture it: Optimizing your site for image search may well move your company or product to a top position in Web search results. Get out there and work it! Source: Pandia Search Engine News. Read the full article here.

» 9 Ways of Optimizing your Site for Image Search