Search Engine Optimization And Image Sitemaps

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, 6 of July , 2008 at 7:58 am

If you utilize a lot of images on your site and you feel that having those images indexed by the search engines then you could consider creating an image sitemap as part of your search engine optimization strategy.

As far as sitemaps go, this is not your standard official search engine sitemap. In fact once completed you cannot ’submit’ this sitemap as you would a normal sitemap. However, once spidered, it may well help to get your images indexed just that little bit quicker. More importantly, as search engines like Google don’t necessarily index all images from a site, an image sitemap may help to get more of your images indexed. As a search engine optimization strategy, it is certainly not going to hurt your site.

An image sitemap is more like a traditional sitemap that are created for visitors rather than search engines. To create a sitemap:

• Set up a dedicated page called Image Sitemap.
• Create a sorted list of all your images - sort them by what is most appropriate - alphabetical, by product, or any other set of categories.
• Ensure that all the images you want indexed are in the sitemap, each with links leading to the image itself.
• Treat the page as any other page when it comes to search engine optimization.
• Create links on each page to the sitemap - particularly your homepage.

If you only have a few images then create a small ’sitemap’ in a sidebar or at the bottom of your home page. The higher up the page the more likely it is to be read quickly. When it comes to search engine optimization, every little extra helps. An image sitemap is just another set of internal links - however, by placing them together on the one page as a form of index may just convince the search engine spider of their importance. It doesn’t hurt to try.

Category: SEO

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