How to Drive Traffic Using Images

I don’t know with static websites but I’ve experienced firsthand from my blogs, especially my photoblog, how images can make traffic pouring in. Aside from the fact that images can make sites more aesthetically likeable, there are other ways that you can do to optimize your images for more search engine traffic.

Here are some effective image optimization techniques:

1. Avoid using images that are too large since they can turn off readers when it takes too much time downloading them. If you find an image that you want but it’s too large, resize it.

2. Use title tags in maximizing the potential of your images in making your site have higher search engine placement. Wordpress powered blogs can easily make use of this image title tag optimization through writing a descriptive title for your images when uploading them for use in your blog posts.

3. Using a descriptive filename, something that can help search engine spiders identify what the image is about is also one way of optimizing images for the search engines. Simple image filename tweaks like, seograph.jpg will perform better than photo1.jpg.

4. Use a keyword suggestion tool such as Overture Keyword Selector in writing filenames or title tags for the images that you use. One of my most well-visited image (because of the good search engine placement) from my photoblog has a title tag of “angel wings tattoo”, which I’ve decided to use with the help of this keyword selector tool.

5. Include your contact information or website URL texts to get credit for your images, if you own the photos you are using. Learn from this tip on how to get credits for your pictures by including contact details or website URL texts to your images properly. Many would just “save the picture as” and put them on their own sites without giving credits to the source of the picture. You can either include a clear note that any use of your images requires a permission from you, a link to your site, or include contact details on your images.

Have you tried any of those methods in using images for SEO? What worked for you? Got other ways to optimize images for your site’s search engine visibility?