Optimizing Images for SEO

4 min readSep 11, 2016

Optimizing Images for SEO

Don’t just post your images into your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.! Take a little extra time and get the most out of them to help boost your brand — optimize images for SEO. Every piece of content you put out about your brand helps bring in potential new customers, so don’t miss the opportunity that having a sound image SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan can do to bring more attention to your brand. Optimizing images is an art and science.

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The following is a step by step guide on how to get brand-related photos to show up as best as possible to help build your brand. This is separate from Instagram, and other Social Media tactics… we are talking here about how to get your images to show up when people are searching on Google. This is even more important if you have celebrity, event, or co-branded images. The Placement Directory connects many brands and studios to facilitate many types of product placement, and brands are constantly asking for suggestions on how to promote their brands in all sorts of ways. In this case, we told our Digitial Marketing staff to put together their top tips for maximizing the potential of a brand’s images online.

Here is your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Checklist for Optimizing Images:

Use a research tool, such as the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to get a good idea of how people are searching, in general, for topics related to your brand. For instance, if you make specialty whiskey, do a search for similar descriptions such as “craft whiskey, small-batch whiskey, hand-crafted whiskey, unique whiskey” and so on and so on. You will get analysis of how many searches are being done for each keyword or phrase, and you will then know what keywords to target!
If you have someone that has a pretty good eye for pictures, take the time to frame up your images by using PhotoShop or some other image-editing tool to crop and re-size all of your images. Crop out dead space and really focus on the brand or other key elements to each image. Try to pick a universal ratio of height and width and a standard size for all photos.
Name your image using both a targeted keyword or phrase and your brand. So, you might have images named “craft-whiskey-acme-distillery-87.jpg”. This is very important and most often a forgotten step. Image file names are very important.
Start by putting your images into several online photo album sites. Flickr and Picasa work very well for SEO. Create separate albums to sort by category, and make sure to include targeted keywords in the album names. Make sure to set the album and accounts to public. Fill out all fields for every image that you upload. This will include a Description, Caption, Tags, etc. Use your list of targeted keywords.
Use a blog or your website to post the images. THEN share to social media sites. Social media sites on their own generally aren’t indexed by Google, so they get caught within the boundaries of your fans or followers. You want the first posting to be on a site or blog that Google can fully index. From most blogging tools you can insert images from an online image album, and the same goes for most website front end tools such as WordPress. Don’t just upload the images, share them from the image album… an extra step that will boost the SEO value of the images.
DO include all extra fields when adding the images. Generally, you will be able to add “Alt” text, a Caption, Description, etc. Whatever is available — utilize.
DON’T try to get cute and overload Google with the same keywords over and over. You have your list of targeted keywords, but also include descriptions and tags for each picture that make it unique. Google likes legitimate, organic content, and lots of it. Optimizing images can be abused and get negative results from Google.
DON’T get creative and try to imprint your website URL on all of the images. If they are properly posted on your site or blog, they will lead people to your brand.
Be patient… Google Images can take time to update. If you set a little time each week to managing your online pictures, you will be rewarded with a large amount of digitial content that is working to connect new potential customers to your brand.