Google Images Integrated into Google Search
I guess all of the big boys are looking for an edge these days. MSN with it’s commercials every five minutes, Yahoo! integrating XML/RSS results into their search results and now Google has decided to integrate images into their search results. In a recent post on Google’s Blog, Radhika Malpani said that images would now be returned in regular Google search results “for certain terms,” whatever that means. The question is, should you be optimizing your images in order to get more search traffic?
Optimizing Your Images for Google
Well, here are a few tips that may help you better optimize your images for Google search.
- Name the images with the keywords you want it to rank for. Naming the image with a descriptive file name (ie: mork-from-ork.jpg) may help
- Use descriptive “alt” attributes. The HTML spec calls for the use of an ALT attribute for
tags. Using descriptive text for the alt attribute can help you rank as well (ie: alt=”Mork from Ork’s picture”)
- Use the image on a page that is related or optimised for that term. Using the image for “Mork from Ork” on a page that is about Ork or Mork and Mindy may help to give the image more weight in Google’s eyes.