To capitalize on growing searcher interest in vertical content such as images, news and video and to improve the search engine user experience, Google and the other search engines have begun blending vertical results into the main search result page. This phenomenon, “universal search,” is advantageous for searchers, as it gives instant access to many types of files on the same search result page.
For retailers and catalog merchants whose sites are rich in images, universal search provides new opportunities for prominent display of these images in search results. The following easy-to-employ tactics will help you optimize images for Google. Use meaningful names that suggest what the image represents. For example, name the image of a pineapple “pineapple.jpg.” Avoid naming images with numerical sequences that are only meaningful to you and your company.
Use the ALT attribute. For all images, in the ALT attribute include short descriptive text of the image content. Include captions. Google uses the image caption (among many other factors) to identify its content, so employ keyword-rich image captions. Be sure the caption describes the image — cute but distracting captions may hinder your chances.
Optimize the page. Google also uses text on the page adjacent to the image to determine the content of the image. To score well, optimize content around the image. Be sure that keywords are in close proximity to the image.
Make images spider accessible. Check that site images aren’t in a folder that you have blocked access to through your robots.txt file. If there are images you don’t want to appear in the search results, put them in a separate folder and block access.
As more webmasters and search marketers begin to employ tactics to improve their image search, expect more competition for image placement in the search results. Now is the time to optimize your images and get a head start.
Commentaires