Optimizing my images to appear on Google Images
-
My website ranks at the top for my keywords, but my images barely show up on Google Images. I'm renaming them, tagging them, I'm not sure what else I can possibly do. Any suggestions? Thanks!
-
So I have always renamed my file before uploading it. But what I realized is that while I was occasionally filling in the "title, alt text, description" I was not doing that consistently. I have started going back into my media library and filling that information in. As I have thousands of pictures on my sites, it will take some time, but I'm hoping that will fix my issue.
I would also love to know if title, alt text and description should be the same. My gut says "no" because Google would likely see that as "spammy." I'm certain I could be wrong though. Would love to hear from others.
-
Thought I'd just ask again in hope someone might see the question that has had experience with this:
_"When using Wordpress (or similar) are all the Media fields needed to be filled out? _
ie. Title, Alt Text, Description?
Would you have all these the same or different? Specially as then when you insert the image into the page you also have Caption on top of the 3 above bits of information?"
-
Anyone had experience with this?
-
We've found (and I'd love someone else to verify this) that there is some invisible meta data in JPEGs when they are first created. The name of the JPEG before it's placed in a site seems to have a significant effect on rankings in some cases. Have a play with some meta data editors and see if that makes a difference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_metadata_editors
-
When using Wordpress (or similar) are all the Media fields needed to be filled out?
ie. Title, Alt Text, Description?
Would you have all these the same or different? Specially as then when you insert the image into the page you also have Caption on top of the 3 above bits of information?
-
When using wordpress are all the Media fields needed to be filled out?
ie. Title, Alt Text, Description?
Would you have all these the same or different? Specially as then when you insert the image into the page you also have Caption on top of the 3 above bits of information?
-
Well I would argue that the images I have posted are kick-ass, so I'm guessing that's not my issue.
-
Thank you Tim.
How can I tell if my site has an image sitemap already?
-
Kickass images are the best optimization.
-
How could make website rank so high but not the images? Seems like both should be ranking about the same, no?
-
Yep, they are being indexed.
I also see your work for https://www.google.com/search?q=Indianapolis+Baby+Photography&source=lnms&tbm=isch
It could just be an authority issue... you need to strengthen your website authority (get more backlinks) in order to rank your pictures higher.
-
Thank you Oleg.
So when I put this in Google and click on the image results, I get a TON of my pictures. I think that means Google is indexing my images, would that be true?
Here's the "this" I referred to: site:lseverson.com newborn photography
-
Yes, it may be over optimized. First off, make sure the images are being indexed (search for site:yourdomain.com + keyword in image search).
Since most of your images are so similar, you should add more descriptive terms (clothing, scenery, lighting, ethnicity, baby synonyms (toddler, infant, newborn, etc)) so that google doesn't think you are just stuffing keywords.
-
Thank you Tim.
How can I tell if my site has an image sitemap already?
-
Have you considered also adding an image sitemap.xml to your site to make it easier for Google to crawl all of the files you want etc. You could use something like Screaming Frog to generate one for you.
-
Thank you Oleg!
Unfortunately, I do ALL those things and I still can't seem to get my images to appear. I am a photographer, so I use the word "portrait" "photography" "photographer" as well as "newborn" and "baby" and maybe it thinks I'm keyword stuffing. But the reality is just about every picture I display is a "newborn baby picture" or "baby photograph." Is it possible that Google thinks I'm trying to spam it by using these words over and over, even if they are words that accurately describe what's in the image?
-
Make sure...
- file name contains keywords
- wherever you use the image, make sure the alt text and title text is keyword friendly
- the image appears on a page that is relevant to the main keywords
- the text surrounding the image (e.g. caption) gives the image more context as well
Don't worry about exif/meta data.
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
-
Optimize code
Hi Guy's, In Wordpress we've got the plugin "WP Rocket". It's possible to optimize CSS, JS, HTML and Google Fonts. If i optimize (minify) CSS and JS the website will load faster and the pagespeed will be reduced. So i guess that's always better for SEO results en SERPS... But what will happen if i optimize my HTML code? It will be much shorter but less organized. Will this also affect SEO results and rankings? I'm awear that less code will increase my text ratio, but don't know if Google will punish the website for having a code that's not very good organized. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO1 -
Google Crawling Issues! How Can I Get Google to Crawl My Website Regularly?
Hi Everyone! My website is not being crawled regularly by Google - there are weeks when it's regular but for the past month or so it does not get crawled for seven to eight days. There are some specific pages, that I want to get ranked but they of late are not being crawled AT ALL unless I use the 'Fetch As Google' tool! That's not normal, right? I have checked and re-checked the on-page metrics for these pages (and the website as a whole, backlinking is a regular and ongoing process as well! Sitemap is in place too! Resubmitted it once too! This issue is detrimental to website traffic and rankings! Would really appreciate insights from you guys! Thanks a lot!
Technical SEO | | farhanm1 -
Best Practices for Image Optimisation
Hi Guys, I would love some recommendations from you all. A potential client of mine is currently hosting all their website image galleries (of which there are many) on a flickr account and realise that they could gain more leverage in Google images (currently none of their images cover off any of the basics for optimisation eg filename, alt text etc), I did say that these basics would at least need to be covered off and that Image hosting is supposedly an important factor especially when it comes to driving traffic from Google Image Search. (potentially images hosted on the same domain as the text are given more value than the images hosted at another domain like websites such as Flickr). The client has now come back saying they have done some 'reading' and that this suggests a sub-domain could be the way to go, e.g. images.mydomain.com - would love feedback on this before I go back to them as it would be a huge undertaking for them. Cheers
Technical SEO | | musthavemarketing0 -
Why wont google Index this page?
A week ago i accidentally changed this page settings in my CMS to "disable & dont index" as i was going to replace this page with another, but this didnt happen, but i forgot to switch the settings back! http://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/funeral-plans Anyhow in an effort to get it back up quickly i submitted in GWTs but its still not indexed. When i use several SEO on page checking tools it has the Meta Title data as "Form" and not the correct title. Any ideas please? Yours frustrated Ash
Technical SEO | | AshShep10 -
Google plus
With Google search plus your world, would i see results ONLY from Google plus followers ? or from someone who is my facebook friend as well.
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Optimizing the canibalization
My client has a website that ranks 1st on ex: widget for website.com The domain also has a section website.com/widgets that ranks lower in the SERP The question is... are there any on-page elements or tactics to improve that specific page without affecting the overall home page performance?
Technical SEO | | mosaicpro0 -
Google Shopping Australia/Google Merchant Centre
So Google Shopping has finally landed in Australia so we've got some work todo hooking it up to our client ecom sites. Right now we have a handful of clients who are setup, the feed is getting in their ok but all products are sitting in "disapproved" status in the dashboard and clicking into each individual product the status says awaiting review. I logged a support ticket with Google to get some more info on this as it doesn't look right to me (ie the disapproved status in dashboard) and got a useless templated answer. Seems that if I switch the country destination to US the products are approved and live in google.com shopping search within the hour. Switch back to Australia and they go back to disapproved status. Anyone having the same issue/seen this before? I simply don't trust Google support and wondering if there's other factors at play here.
Technical SEO | | Brendo0 -
Images Reference Other Web Server
One of my real estate clients has a website that was built by a small web design company. In reviewing the website I've discovered that many of the images on the website (ie. banners, social networking icons, ect.) are not hosted on my clients server, but on the web developers server. Ex. src="http://www.[WebDevelopmentCompany].com/ubertor/[ClientsName]/properties_image.jpg" Will this funnel pagerank/link juice away from my client's website? This struck me as odd and it's not an issue I've come across before.
Technical SEO | | calin_daniel0