People who spend time online are very visual. That’s why all the new generations of mobile phones now have built-in cameras installed – to allow users to take pictures easily anytime, anywhere and post it to Facebook. It’s also the reason why infographics are so popular now and why Pinterest, an online pinboard, is becoming such a hit. (Are you in Pinterest?!) And it would also be the reason why, from now on, you will doing image SEO on your blog and web site.
Does image SEO help you in your business? YES. You see, Google is becoming more comprehensive in its search results. Before, only web sites and blog are listed on page one of any search but now, it’s including maps and pictures. Just take a look at this search I made for Calgary Alberta.
As you can see, the images appeared after the web site of the city itself and its Wikipedia entry. It included an image of The Fairmont Hotel, which is great for the hotel since tourists looking for accommodations in Calgary would find it first before any other hotel. Now, if you’re running a hotel or an inn in Calgary, wouldn’t you want to be in that same strip of photos as the Fairmont Hotel?
Simple Image SEO
How do you get in league with The Fairmont Hotel? Follow these four really, really simple steps:
- Rename your image using the keyword you want to rank for. Using the previous example as reference, rename an image of your hotel as “calgary alberta”. You can use more specific keywords for the other images like “calgary hotels”, “calgary inns”, etc.
- Make sure that the title of of your image is the same as the image name.
- Use the title of your image as the alternate tag of your image.
- Be careful not to use the same keyword in the next image in your blog post to avoid keyword stuffing.
That’s it! Really simple, right? Now, you have to be conscientious once you start doing this, otherwise your efforts will be in vain. As with any other SEO efforts, you can only get results with consistency.
Now, go and take a picture for your next blog post…