Images are a great way to get traffic, but too many people do not make the effort to optimize their images for the search engines. Here are some simple tips that will go a long way to boosting your traffic. On my Microsoft Zune blog, Google Images provides me with over 1,000 visitors each month and ranks #4 on my list of traffic providers (with Google analytics).

There are some important things to note in the graphic. I got over 1,000 visitors because I optimized my images for the search engines and so many of the images are hosted on my server. Also, you should notice that each visitor only stayed around for 30 seconds. Like I stated before, most people that find your site through Google and Yahoo image searchers are there for the image and not for the content. These are the worst visitors because they are there to take your image or leach off your server. See my articles, “Photos: To Host or Not to host?” for the benefits of hosting your images on your server compared to a free image host. Back on subject! Use keywords in your images to boost your article and your images in the image search engines.

Optimizing your Images for the Search Engines

As you can see from the Google analytics shot above, you can get considerable traffic from Google search. Weather that traffic is really worth it is debatable. If you want this traffic read on!

The best way to optimize your images for the search engines is three-fold.

1. Use keywords when saving your image
2. use - (dashes) vice _ (underscores)
3. Use ALT TEXT

Use keywords when saving your image

Time and time again I see people saving their images like 5gismxbdmch.jpg or image0001.jpg. How in the world is a search engine suppose to figure out what this photo is about? Search engine bots/spiders can only read text. They don’t have eyes to see an image and figure out what it is. If you are saving an image be as short, yet specific as possible! For instance, if you are saving an image of a 16 MB Apple iPhone then save the image as apple-iphone-16mb.jpg or 16mb-apple-iphone.jpg. Saving the image as image0001.jpg is worthless! When the google bot crawls your site after you upload the image it will store the image for search with the keywords “Apple” and iPhone” and 16mb” in it. When someone searches Google images down the road using these keywords you have a great chance of being found compared to the guy that saved his file as 5msklsmdc.jpg

use - (dashes) vice _ (underscores)

From what I understand, computers read dashes as a space and do not see underscores as a space. This can be important when a search is conducted in a search engine. Let’s take two examples of a saved image:

1. apple-iphone-16mb.jpg
2. apple_iphone_16mb.jpg

The first uses dashes and is read as apple iphone 16mb by the search engines. The second one is read as appleiphone16mb. If you were searching for an 16MB Apple iPhone image would you search it all as one key word (appleiphone16mb) or as 16MB Apple iPhone?

Use ALT TEXT

You should always use the ALT TEXT. The ALT TEXT is the text that appears when you mouse over an image. Some people browse the web with images disabled (not shown in the browser). Specifically, people with dial up may turn off the ability to see images. In the image’s place is the ALT TEXT. In my example above, I would pace 16MB Apple iPhone in the ALT TEXT. This is a great way to ensure the keywords are stuffed into your article thus helping your article get exposure to the search engines. If your article is about the “16 MB Apple iPhone” you now have that keyword in the image and in the ALT TEXT.

Keep in mind that this is another great reason you should always have images with your articles. Not only do they make you article more appealing, they boost the keywords in your article helping you get traffic!

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• Photos: To Host or Not to Host?
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