Image Optimization Best Practices

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Peter Linsley, product manager at Google, discusses best practices for image search optimization. How can webmasters position their images for best results to improve the image search feature at Google and assist searchers in finding the images that they want to find? It’s a good question and particularly pertinent because none of the search engines have perfected image search to the level that regular web search is at currently. There is still some ways to go.

His four salient points stick within the boundaries of:

• Focus on the User
• Using High Quality Images
• Staying Above the Fold
• Providing Descriptive Text

These are all great points but what he doesn’t discuss are keywords and alt tags. These are both very important for optimizing your images and both go hand in hand with the descriptive text aspect of Linsley’s presentation.

Obviously, a user-focused image is one that meets the needs of your website audience. You don’t want to use images that don’t appeal to your audience. That’s kind of a no-brainer. The second point, high quality, has as much to do with image size as the actual quality and detail of pixelation. Generally, larger images are best, but you don’t want your images so large that they dominate your web page or that they slow it down on load time. So size is very important.

The third point, staying above the fold, is merely academic. Above the fold, of course, is the optimal placement for image and text, but keeping in mind the needs of your website visitors is always the best.

Now, for descriptive text. Alt tags are a way for you to tell the search engines what your images are about. Use them. They are very important and they are also a way for you to include your keyword and associate it with an image. But don’t make your alt tag too long. Just long enough to really describe what your photo is about. Don’t write a book.

But just as important as alt tags is the text surrounding your photo or image. Make sure that the text closest to your image is keyword rich and provides additional information about what may be happening in your image without drawing undue attention to the image. In other words, you don’t want to say, “The image at the right is depicting ….” Rather, you just want a natural flow of language that is helpful to the reader. If your web page is instructional and is teaching users how to change spark plugs on their vehicle, an image of a spark plug might be helpful, but make sure you place that image next to a paragraph that actually discusses the spark plug and isn’t about cleaning up afterward because that will translate into better image search engine optimization.

In summary, the best descriptive SEO for image search involves a keyword rich alt tag and a paragraph contiguous with the image that discusses the keyword concept in a natural way.

And now, without further adieu, here’s Peter Linsley’s presentation on best practices for image search.