dsc_1000 will get you 707 results

Any one care to guess what I’m talking about here?  I mentioned this when I had the privilege to speak at the November meeting.  I’m talking about taking the time to change the name of images to be keyword rich and descriptive. I did a quick Google image search of the term dsc_1000 and got 707 returned results.

There are three place to pay attention when using images in your posts.

The File Name

I’m talking about the file name of the image you upload.  Change that file name to keywords which are descriptive of the post.  Instead of dsc_1000.jpg use McCormickRanchGolfCourse.jpg.  You can also insert hyphens between the words.  The search engines will remove the hyphens.

The Title Tag

I often make the title and caption the same.  (Captions if using a Wordpress blog).  Here again I would title it something like “The view from the tee box at the 15th hole”.

The Alt Tag

The alt tag is the one place you don’t put keywords unless they really do fit for the image.  The alt tag is what is spoken for the visually impaired if they can’t see the screen.  Their browser reader will tell them it is an image and the alt tag is what is read to describe the image.  This is not the place to put keywords unless they are descriptive of the image.

I would never recommend you use the Title or Alt tags to stuff keywords.  I don’t believe in keyword stuffing anywhere on a blog or website.  Create good content and tag your images and posts accordingly.  Do this often and you will do more for the SEO of your blog than all the keyword stuffing you can think of.

Descriptive Terms Increase Your Traffic

Up to 1/3 of my traffic on any given day comes from image searches on Google.  They find those images because they are searching for things related to Tucson or the desert etc.  No one besides me searches for dsc_1000.  Use those descriptive terms and you will increase targeted traffic to your site.

Finally, Google and other search engines are clamping down on all the keyword stuffing that has been going on in alt tags.  (Abuse leads to regulation and penalties).  My point.  If you have been keyword stuffing your alt and title tags of your images you not only should stop it, you should go back and edit those previous posts where you abused the system, even if you didn’t know it was an abuse.

Google doesn’t look to see when you started or stopped, it will know when it finds it and it will penalize accordingly.  JUST BECAUSE EVERYONE IS DOING IT DOESN’T MAKE IT OKAY.  What you might “Get Away With” today could very well earn you a penalty in the future.  This is why it is always best practice to follow “best practices”.  It will make your life easier in the future.

An artificial high placement today is fleeting.  What you want is long lasting placement and earned trust of the search engines by using best practices in all you do on the web.