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.
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