This is a result of an article I’ve found just the other day talking about how to optimize images. I’ve looked at it and added my opinions, corrected what I think was wrong, and explained them as well. So here we go.

Simple factors (SEO) of an image are the alt text (basically translating the image to the search engine), the href title (if the image is in a link, so that Google gets the link right), the text around the image (think of captions), the image name itself (both for url seo and searches in google image search) and the page title (to a short extent - to set the frame).

Some people argue that file format is important, which is not so. It doesn’t matter if it’s jpg, png or gif, Google will index them all if you let it. Another interesting concept put forward here was that the image folder be a separate one (which I find to be detrimental to seo - think of the URL optimization, it’s better to have website.com/bucharest/seo.jpg rather than website.com/images/seo.jpg) and that it has permissions (it usually does, unless you block it with robots.txt or .htaccess).

Updated images come next, as the web works in mysterious ways, and one of them is recency. As I’ve mentioned before in the New Google Algorithm article recency is important to search engines nowadays. This means that if an image is perceived as new it gets indexed more often and given more importance. The article said reupload your images, but I say go one further and recompress them all before uploading (the images hardly change but their filesize does, so the search engine will be fooled ).

Enhanced image search in Google Webmaster Tools. It’s an option, so why not activate it… My guess is it uses the Google image labeling game and refines your image labels. While it may screw a bit with your keywords it may also mean more exposure to the image (and think if it’s a logo - hehe, brand recognition hello).

Image size, not so important for search engines. Sure, lately speed has become a factor for most SE but this refers to people. Why I say it’s not important? Well, if you’ve ever searched Google Image Search you’ve seen that there are huge images there, some over 8MP… So Google indexes all, with no problems. And while most people have broadband, try to make sure the most important things on the site are not all image, or are properly accompanied by text… You can figure it out.

Number of images per page is a factor just as number of keywords per page is. The more, the less weight each is given… Also, SEO is mostly about text, so try to use text predominantly, images are like text but weigh less… And be careful where you host them, just so you don’t run out of bandwidth or anything (i choose locally any day - although there may be distinct advantages to using a major image hosting provider - the most of which is localized servers for different geographic locations).

This is a factor I’ve seen people not using and it’s important. We human beings are aesthetically pleased by beautiful images (preferably of other people) and not huge wallops of text (well, unless you know how to make it look good). I’ve been of photographer, but I’ve left the profession and kept it as a hobby lately since the world is filled with good cameras which can take decent images when handled properly. Point is, if you have a camera, make sure you know how to use it. Odds are you’re bound to find someone to help you if you don’t or you can use a resource like fotolia, or stockexchange, etc where you can buy a decent image for a symbolic price. A great website with crappy photos is a crappy website… So spend the extra dollar and make sure it looks good… This is backed up by the fact that people react better to clear sharp images so make sure you use some that follow the criteria.

For digg thumbnail generation (when submitting - you want this) you need to make sure your photos have an aspect ratio of 1:1 or 4:3 (square or normal screen aspect ratio).

Make sure text is the main object of the page. People have the tendency to focus on titles first (large text), then seek meaning and context through images, and then if the combination is desired they move on to the body text. So make sure you focus on copy as well as integrating the image into the article and illustrating it as best as possible.

These are the factors and I’ve also been met with a very nice plugin for wordpress, SEO friendly images which i find brilliant and it optimizes alt texts to help with the seo effort

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