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So now I'm wondering if I should begin targetting picture search engines systematically and how that should be done. And I have some questions to those webmasters with more experiences in this field:
1. How many search engines are there with picture search worth targetting?
2. Are file names important?
3. Is alt text important?
4. Is surrounding text important?
However I would wonder about the quality of the traffic from a commercial perspective.
Last time I checked, my record was less than half of 1 % (0,42 %) of visitors incoming from image searches on a real estate site. All of them from Google. So I didn't dig deeper. Nevertheless, I noticed that images found were on the page focusing on the intended keyphrase. ie if page was focusing on green gizmo the green gizmo image was on SERP on image search. So I am convinced that file names, alt text and surrounding are indeed important.
But lets revert the general idea of your question, just for fun.
Lets use a text page about the green gizmo and add a picture of a green gizmo on it called green-gizmo-small.jpg. Lets spice it with a "Small picture of the Green Gizmo" ALT and a search engine friendly pop up link to green-gizmo-pop.htm page using short text, relevant basic navigation links and a picture called green-gizmo-large.jpg, spiced with "Large picture of the Green Gizmo" ALT.
Do you think the original green gizmo page will rank better on regular searches?
I bet it will. Plus, this new green-gizmo-pop.htm page can be a good provider of anchor text links for other pages of your site. Sometimes your can appear on two positions instead of one on SERPs adding those.
[edited by: Macguru at 1:30 pm (utc) on Oct. 19, 2003]
True. And probably half of those were out to steal images/ideas for images :)
Oooops! I might have been one of them!
Most probably, but maybe less if the target key phrase has "for sale", "discount" or "free" in it.
The ( hurumm ) sector of activity may bring more traffic from image searches, but then, I guess conversion rates will be very low. ;)
Image searches was not worth focusing on for me, but images is definitly a useful tool for some other zones to get tweaked with in order to score better in regular searches.
In my opinion, optimizing images is part of the process for any site. It's not about the SEs, but more about site maintenance and management. I'm a firm believer that everything should be named appropriately, no matter what it is.
Yes, there is a method to optimizing images for image search. In Google's case...
Google analyzes the text on the page adjacent to the image, the image caption and dozens of other factors to determine the image content.
Easiest way to determine which factors are being considered is to do a search at your favorite image search facility. Look at those first images and analyze what is occuring.
Whatever you do, don't just optimize an image to target an unrelated keyword phrase (unrelated to the image). If you have to, find an image that is appropriate and be creative with your optimization.
Now, if you are a stock photo house or something similar, then image optimization is mandatory and requires careful thought and technique.
Ask the right question and your'e gonna have some high quality answers from people who know what they talk about. This thread is a good example. Thanks to all of you.
Not that you have written anything really unknown and surprising, but you have confirmed some opinions that I already had, and you have dug deeper in some places.
> everything should be named appropriately, no matter what it is
I'm with you on that one. And I might ad that true optimising of a page (and a site) means making every little detail fit together with all other details.
May I try another shot? Even if its off topic from original question?
Tumbnail pages!
Make tumbnail pages with short text descriptions. Sort them by country, color, price, size, weight, family, lenght or whatherver fits to pop the most thumbnail pages you can.
All those properly named files and properly pointed links, can help your rankings for rest of site. I was surprised by the amount of human visitors using them too.
