How to optimize photos with SEO?

1. 88

   Dorsiposted 12 years ago

   I am doing quite a bit of photography - and am wondering... when putting titles, captions and tags on your photography, what is the best way to use keywords for SEO? Like for example. since I am publishing these photos to my own website, should I tag them with my website address, or my name or ??? The purpose is to drive traffic to my website. And from there add some Zazzle products of photos that I have taken.
   Any advice appreciated!

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   1. 82

      GmaGoldieposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Where you want the traffic is where you want to link to. Imagine going to Google images and finding your image, the reader then clicks the images and it leads to your website.
      
      Sadly, our names don't mean allot - the website is what needs the traffic for SEO purposes - unless of course your website is your name.
      
      I have not studied the websites of .me - the personal websites - I don't see a future for them but for a professional photographer perhaps that makes sense but then that website would compete with your time for the other website.
      
      Staying focused on one website and one niche, from what I have read about SEO is the secret. We cannot be all things to all people. We must deliver to our target audience consistently.
      
      I was unpublished for having links to hotels when I was writing about luggage tags so my takeaway was the broad subjects don't work. Keeping a focus for the key word search is paramount is the lesson I learned from the various rounds of Panda.
      
      I have found allot of photos leading directly to Zazzle - if you are making money there - that might be a great lead in until you develop your own following on your website. Kinda like a stepping stone for SEO. I would look to move your photos eventually back to your website where the profits would be higher.

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      1. 88

         Dorsiposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you Gma. That was a good explanation.
         @Greekgeek) Thanks for the info about HP photos. I didn't know that.
         @Marisa) Thanks, I'm getting the "gist" of it. This website development stuff has a strong learning curve!

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   2. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      On your website, you will have the option to add a title and an "alt" tag.  Always use both.
      
      I think it's best to use a title and alt tag which are descriptive of the image.  After all, you want your photo to be found on a Google image search.  If you've tagged it with your name, no one's going to be typing that into the image search, are they?  Or your website name. 
      
      When the searcher clicks on the image in Google image search, it takes them to your website anyway. 
      
      The only other thing I'd do is add your website name on the photo itself - that way if it's pinned or whatever, your website name goes with it even if the user doesn't give you a credit link.

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2. 79

   Greekgeekposted 12 years ago

   Unfortunately, we can't take full advantage of SEO for images, because Hubpages renames our image files to a random code. So we're missing the main component used to optimize images for search and get them to show up in image search tools: the image's file name.
   
   However, the caption/description field that Hubpages gives us is fed into the alt-tag, which is also used by image search tools to help determine what an image is. This is an awkward implementation -- an alt-tag is actually supposed to be for vision-impaired users and screen readers to inform them in 2-4 words what an image is, whereas a caption tends to be a longer remark -- but at least it's there. Search engines will look at the words in the alt-tag (our image caption) to help them determine what the picture is.
   
   The header of an image caption gives them an additional clue, because it's in close proximity to the graphic.
   
   So be explicit and descriptive in those two places -- header, caption -- and make sure you use words that identify the image's content, rather than puns, jokes, or general phrases like "Figure 1."
   
   (A third clue is what the image links to -- if the image credit link points to a page which is about a particular topic, that may boost your image's relevance very slightly for that topic.)

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   1. 66

      JustMikeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Also when you put your alt tag on an image if someone uses it on their website like if you make the image a creative commons license then that will be a backlink  to your site? That is my thinking is that correct or not?

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      1. 40

         free-seotoolsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         The alt tag is purely for the search engines and for those that have text only browsers. Backlinks are in <a href"http://www.abcd.com">This is a backlink</a> format.

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