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How Google
Image Search Helps SEO
By Rob Fenn (c) 2010
What is Google Image Search?
Google has a dedicated version of its search engine called Image
Search which helps find images. Claiming to be the most
comprehensive image search facility on the web, it has billions
of images from websites already within its index. When searching
for images, you can tailor the search for various sizes and
choose a specific type of image you're looking for, such as a
photo, clipart or head shot.
When clicking on a image, the image will load as a preview in
one frame, whilst showing the website the image is from in a
frame below. This gives you the option of visiting the website
or enlarging the image to full size. Google Image Search is
popular. It actually gets more traffic than Yahoo, Window Live
Search and Ask Jeeves.
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Why is Google Image Search Important To Me?
As mentioned, Google Image Search gets more traffic than
supposed major search engines in the UK, typically getting more
visits than websites such as Amazon and MySpace (Source:
Hitwise). This means Google Image Search is a potential source
for traffic to your site, and although perhaps not as targeted
as conventional search, implies that people are actively
searching for what you offer.
The biggest reason to start optimizing for Google Image Search
is that it is not as competitive as normal search, despite the
great amount of traffic it can provide. Although ranking well in
Google Image Search itself does not help your conventional
search engine rankings, a byproduct of ranking well in Google
Image Search could mean this will happen eventually because of
the viral potential.
How Do I Get My Images onto Google Image Search?
You cannot submit images in the same way you can submit your
website or sitemap to Google. Results are entirely shown by
Google's algorithm after indexing all websites it finds.
Google's imaging spider is called Google Image Bot. It crawls
the web and indexes all of the pages it can find. Being a
program, it cannot 'see' images, so it has other ways of
determining an image's relevancy. These factors are:
1. Descriptive Image Name
When optimizing a website, we have talked about relevancy in
other articles. It sounds obvious, but you have to talk about
what you do. Integrating keyword phrases into this content is
essential and makes a genuine difference to rankings. In a
simplified way, this is no different for images.
Your images should be named after their subject. For example, if
you want to come up in Google Image Search for David Beckham you
should call it something along the lines of 'david-beckham.jpg'
as opposed to something generic such as 'photo1234.jpg.'
Likewise, if you have a folder full of David Beckham images,
name the folder descriptively too.
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2. Compliant Images
Creating accessibility compliant images works in hand with being
descriptive and relevant. There are a number of criteria you
have to meet to have an officially compliant image. These
criteria are:
• A 'src' attribute specifying the URL of the image
• A width and height declaration of the image in pixels
• An 'alt' attribute that describes the content of the image
• A 'title' attribute that contains a text description when hovering over the image
The 'alt' and 'title' tag are specifically important for
optimization as they are way of building in keyword phrases,
e.g. David Beckham. Below is an example of how the code and
image should look for the David Beckham image:
<img src="images/david-beckham/photo-david-beckham.jpg" width="209" height="314" alt="David Beckham" title="David Beckham">
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3. On Page Optimization
If you're reading this far, you probably know a fair amount
about Search Engine Optimization. In order to get your images
ranking well in Google Image Search, you'll need to have the
whole page optimized towards that image. Therefore, try not to
be optimizing the page for more than one subject, such as mixing
David Beckham with Kevin Pietersen (he's a cricketer for the
Yanks reading this!).
You should concentrate on being descriptive for the Title and
Meta tags. One of the more important factors specific to Image
Search optimization is not only concentrating on relevant
content, but specifically the content in close proximity to the
image. Bear this in mind when setting the layout of the page!
4. PageRank and Backlinks
Another factor shared with general Search Engine Optimization is
that Google will rank an image higher if it is on an authority
page. This means a page that has backlinks and consequently, a
relatively good Google PageRank. Try to generate backlinks to
the specific page by visiting forums, blogs and other websites
related to the subject matter. Also be sure to internal link to
the page so it is indexed quickly and gains some PageRank from
your established pages. For both inbound and internal links,
make sure they have descriptive anchor text.
5. Website Relevancy
Although important, PageRank isn't as important with Image
Search as with ranking on Google's main search engine. Website
relevancy counts for more, so if you had a whole website
dedicated to David Beckham, this would be better than having a
single page. If this isn't possible, try to create a 'theme'
within your website where you create more than one page about
the subject matter. You should then inter-link these pages.
Website Relevancy is considered of growing importance within the
SEO world and should be factored into your website wide
optimization planning.
6. Image Storage
Related to relevancy, Google's Image Guidelines suggest saving
all related images in the same folder. If Google can see you
concentrate on this subject, this could potentially boost your
ranking within Google Images. Likewise, if you talk a lot about
the chosen subject across many pages, you may want keep them
under a well titled sub-folder.
About The Author
Rob Fenn is an SEO specialist, working within the
Webtacular department of the
website design firm Sixth Sense ESP,
which focuses on Internet Marketing for SMEs. Outside of SEO, Rob is also a Google AdWords Qualified
Professional.
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