Should you use the keyword for your page in an image?
-
Hi there!
I am currently working on building up the SEO ranking on a page using a specific keyword - dresses.
Within this page, we have an online image library full of dresses which are then added to multiple pages determined by brand, colour, type etc for people to search.
I am adding hundreds of images all of dresses - I wanted to know if I name these images using the keyword: for example 'dresses_1, 'dresses_2' - will that have a knock on effect on page I am trying to build up and optimise for the keyword 'dresses'???
Any help is appreciated.
-
You need to title the images what they are, not focused to SEO. So if the dress is called the Summer Green in Fields Dress, the file name should be summer-green-fields-dress.jpg (or something like it) and then the alt text be Summer Green in Fields Dress.
-
This is great, thanks for your responses!
So putting my SEO 'best practise' foot forward - would you suggest only using the image name 'dresses' for a few of the images rather than all?
With the website I am using, the 'file name' also acts as the ALT tag. I've got hundreds of images to upload, but I don't want to use 'dresses' in every image name and ALT tag if this is going to have a knock on effect on the main dresses page I am optimising for this keyword..
Out of your suggestions - what do you think is the best way forward?
-
I agree with Travis here. I'd also add that it's important to use a wide range of descriptive language. i.e. summer dress; floral dress; vintage skirt etc. I find a richness and variety of language works really well rather than focusing too closely around a single dominant keyword like 'dresses'.
Build useful ALT tags for users who can't see images, rather than search engines, and I don't think you can go too far wrong.
-
When it comes to alt tags, I always err on the side of descriptive. The alt is used when the image link is broken, or if a plain text browser/screen reader is in use. I tend to think about it as a usability/accessibility issue.
I would go with something like "brand-color-dresses". Say "gap-pink-dresses". If you're not doing a dictionary attack on the alt tags, you should be okay.
-
I might question adding the same keyword with just a number as an ALT tag to the images might be flagged as keyword spamming. If you have a full page (gallery) showing 20-50 dresses to the user all at once, you'd also have 20-50 ALT tags that are basically the same. - So I'd suggest watching out for that issue. Perhaps you can tell when reading from a database, how many dresses will be appearing on screen and then just program it so it shows the ALT tag on only 1/8 of them or 1/4 of them, or whatever works out proportionally.
-
It is certainly good to use descriptive names and alt text for images. Partly because of google images searches that can bring in traffic extra organic traffic.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Customer Reviews on Product Page / Pagination / Crawl 3 review pages only
Hi experts, I present customer feedback, reviews basically, on my website for the products that are sold. And with this comes the ability to read reviews and obviously with pagination to display the available reviews. Now I want users to be able to flick through and read the reviews to help them satisfy whatever curiosity they have. My only thinking is that the page that contains the reviews, with each click of the pagination will present roughly the same content. The only thing that changes is the title tags which will contain the number in the H1 to display the page number. I'm thinking this could be duplication but i have yet to be notified by Google in my Search console... Should i block crawlers from crawling beyond page 3 of reviews? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Train4Academy.co.uk0 -
Image sitemap
I work on a big eCommerce site with thousands of pages. We are talking about crating a separate image sitemap. Any idea example of an eCommerce site who has a separate image sitemap? I looked several and cant find one. Also, what are the best practices for creating a good image sitemap? thanks!
Technical SEO | | bizuH0 -
Using images from one domain on another?
I run a travel photography business where I sell fine art prints. I've been toying with the idea of creating a few new websites about some of the places I've traveled to. This is for a few reasons. First, because I love talking about my travels. But second, because I feel like it might be a good way to bring in more print sales from those places. The question I have, if I were to use the images from my main photography sales domain on a different domain, how does this affect SEO? These images filenames for the photographs are already optimized well for searching. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | shannmg10 -
For keyword relevance, how important is proximity to beginning of the line and/or page?
A client and I are debating between two taglines, which both contain an important keyword phrase. This tagline will exist as the H1 on the homepage, as well as in the header with the logo on internal and landing pages. The tagline structure is either: [keyword phrase] Solutions or Single Source [keyword phrase] Can anyone weigh in on which is better? Thanks much!!
Technical SEO | | imagodig0 -
How can I change the page title "two" (artigos/page/2.html) in each category ?
I have some categories and photo galleries that have more than one page (i.e.: http://www.buffetdomicilio.com/category/artigos and http://www.buffetdomicilio.com/category/artigos/page/2). I think that I must change the tittle and description, but I don't how. I would like to know how can I change the title of each of them without stay with duplicate title and description. Thank you! ahcAORR.jpg
Technical SEO | | otimizador20130 -
Dynamic page
I have few pages on my site that are with this nature /locator/find?radius=60&zip=&state=FL I read at Google webmaster that they suggest not to change URL's like this "According to Google's Blog (link below) they are able to crawl the simplified dynamic URL just fine, and it is even encouraged to use a simple dynamic URL ( " It's much safer to serve us the original dynamic URL and let us handle the problem of detecting and avoiding problematic parameters. " ) _http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html _It can also actually lead to a decrease as per this line: " We might have problems crawling and ranking your dynamic URLs if you try to make your urls look static and in the process hide parameters which offer the Googlebot valuable information. "The URLs are already simplified without any extra parameters, which is the recommended structure from Google:"Does that mean I should avoid rewriting dynamic URLs at all?
Technical SEO | | ciznerguy
That's our recommendation, unless your rewrites are limited to removing unnecessary parameters, or you are very diligent in removing all parameters that could cause problems" I would love to get some opinions on this also please consider that those pages are not cached by Google for some reason.0 -
Secondary Pages Indexed over Primary Page
I have 4 pages for a single product Each of the pages link to the Main page for that product Google is indexing the secondary pages above my preferred landing page How do I fix this?
Technical SEO | | Bucky0 -
Page not Accesible for crawler in on-page report
Hi All, We started using SEOMoz this week and ran into an issue regarding the crawler access in the on-page report module. The attached screen shot shows that the HTTP status is 200 but SEOMoz still says that the page is not accessible for crawlers. What could this be? Page in question
Technical SEO | | TiasNimbas
http://www.tiasnimbas.edu/Executive_MBA/pgeId=307 Regards, Coen SEOMoz.png0