SEO Tips for Image Optimization On Any Website

Search engine optimization is the number one factor in getting your page ranked and noticed. This helps to ensure people view your website and that Google and other search engines rank it as a valuable piece of the internet. While most people know about the basics needed to optimize a page many are at a loss as to what to do about images. For a long time many web masters just left images as they were and didn’t factor them into optimization, but times are changing. Image tags, especially with the advent of image searches, can be useful for SEO purposes, if you know how to use your keywords effectively. Below you will find a few tips and tricks to properly optimizing your images.

File NamesThe file name does matter. Many people forget how important file names are when trying to optimize an image. The keyword or keywords should always appear in the file name. Rename any and all files to reflect what the picture is or what the website is associated with. For example, if you are looking to garner attention about the genetics of eye colors a picture of blue eyes should be named “blue_eyes_genetics.jpg”. This will help grab attention and allow your image to come up in image searches. When image file names are left as a simple string of numbers they will come up much lower in search engines, if at all.

Content Connection and IntegrationWhile it seems like a good idea to stuff websites full of images the images should always have some connection to the website content. If you are writing about dog breeds having pictures of sunrises and cars is not going to help you get visitors. Sure, it will gain you some quick viewers, but if you are looking to engage readers your images should be associated with your content. The image and the content must line up for search engine bots to truly crawl the site accurately. Be sure to keep in line with your content regarding the images you choose to host and you will find your site will quickly rise in the rankings. The goal is not to just gain viewers. It is to engage viewers and keep them coming back for more.

Alt TextAlt text is how search engine bots figure out what your image is about. You should make sure the alt text is a solid description of what the image is about. If you are using an image as a click through to another page you should make sure the alt text describes the page that the image links too. Strong, descriptive alt text helps search engine bots categorize your images correctly and efficiently. The better the descriptor the quicker your images will be appropriately categorized. Alt texts should contain the important information about the image. If it is a logo image the name of the company plus the word Logo will do the trick.

Overstuffing KeywordsThis tip might seem counterintuitive but it is important not to stuff the anchor text or Alt text with keywords. You want to describe the content and optimize it for your users and search engine bots. Overstuffing the file name, or anchor text with keywords will mess up the algorithm and distract search engine bots. The stuffing of keywords will also make for a difficult viewing experience for your readers. Essentially overexerting your keyword power will do the opposite of what search engine optimization is supposed to do.

Less is MoreThe final trick is another counterintuitive one; keep your images to a minimum unless you are a photography website. Sure, images look great, but the SEO gods only speak text. Alt text, file names and even Meta tags can help your images gain relevancy, but text always reigns supreme in the land of search engine optimization. Simply put your images should be an accoutrement of your site; it should not be the main star.

Armed with these tips and tricks most web master should have no problem optimizing their images in such a fashion that it will actually help their page rank. In the past images seemed unimportant to webmasters, but today images are a serious part of the equation that must be considered.

About guest blogger

Cindy Jacobson is an online freelance writer with over 10 years of experience writing for larger

advertisers on the web. Advertisers such as PrBlog, EnGadget, Verizon and many others. She

currently is writing about Att uverse coupon news within the U.S and Canada.

20 SEO Terms You Should Know

If you have a website or blog, or if you work with anything related to the Internet, you’ll certainly need to know a bit about search engine optimization (SEO). A good way to get started is to familiarize yourself with the most common terms of the trade, and below you’ll find 20 of them. (For those who already know SEO, consider this post as a refresher!).

1. SEM: Stands for Search Engine Marketing, and as the name implies it involves marketing services or products via search engines. SEM is divided into two main pillars: SEO and PPC. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is the practice of optimizing websites to make their pages appear in the organic search results. PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, and it is the practice of purchasing clicks from search engines. The clicks come from sponsored listings in the search results.

2. Backlink: Also called inlink or simply link, it is an hyperlink on another website pointing back to your own website. Backlinks are important for SEO because they affect directly the PageRank of any web page, influencing its search rankings.

3. PageRank: PageRank is an algorithm that Google uses to estimate the relative important of pages around the web. The basic idea behind the algorithm is the fact that a link from page A to page B can be seen as a vote of trust from page A to page B. The higher the number of links (weighted to their value) to a page, therefore, the higher the probability that such page is important.

4. Linkbait: A linkbait is a piece of web content published on a website or blog with the goal of attracting as many backlinks as possible (in order to improve one’s search rankings). Usually it’s a written piece, but it can also be a video, a picture, a quiz or anything else. A classic example of linkbait are the “Top 10″ lists that tend to become popular on social bookmarking sites.

5. Link farm. A link farm is a group of websites where every website links to every other website, with the purpose of artificially increasing the PageRank of all the sites in the farm. This practice was effective in the early days of search engines, but today they are seeing as a spamming technique (and thus can get you penalized).

6. Anchor text: The anchor text of a backlink is the text that is clickable on the web page. Having keyword rich anchor texts help with SEO because Google will associate these keywords with the content of your website. If you have a weight loss blog, for instance, it would help your search rankings if some of your backlinks had “weight loss” as their anchor texts.

7. NoFollow: The nofollow is a link attribute used by website owners to signal to Google that they don’t endorse the website they are linking to. This can happen either when the link is created by the users themselves (e.g., blog comments), or when the link was paid for (e.g., sponsors and advertisers). When Google sees the nofollow attribute it will basically not count that link for the PageRank and search algorithms.

8. Link Sculpting: By using the nofollow attribute strategically webmasters were able to channel the flow of PageRank within their websites, thus increasing the search rankings of desired pages. This practice is no longer effective as Google recently change how it handles the nofollow attribute.

9. Title Tag: The title tag is literally the title of a web page, and it’s one of the most important factors inside Google’s search algorithm. Ideally your title tag should be unique and contain the main keywords of your page. You can see the title tag of any web page on top of the browser while navigating it.

10. Meta Tags: Like the title tag, meta tags are used to give search engines more information regarding the content of your pages. The meta tags are placed inside the HEAD section of your HTML code, and thus are not visible to human visitors.

11. Search Algorithm: Google’s search algorithm is used to find the most relevant web pages for any search query. The algorithm considers over 200 factors (according to Google itself), including the PageRank value, the title tag, the meta tags, the content of the website, the age of the domain and so on.

12. SERP: Stands for Search Engine Results Page. It’s basically the page you’ll get when you search for a specific keyword on Google or on other search engines. The amount of search traffic your website will receive depends on the rankings it will have inside the SERPs.

13. Sandbox: Google basically has a separate index, the sandbox, where it places all newly discovered websites. When websites are on the sandbox, they won’t appear in the search results for normal search queries. Once Google verifies that the website is legitimate, it will move it out of the sandbox and into the main index.

14. Keyword Density: To find the keyword density of any particular page you just need to divide the number of times that keyword is used by the total number of words in the page. Keyword density used to be an important SEO factor, as the early algorithms placed a heavy emphasis on it. This is not the case anymore.

15. Keyword Stuffing: Since keyword density was an important factor on the early search algorithms, webmasters started to game the system by artificially inflating the keyword density inside their websites. This is called keyword stuffing. These days this practice won’t help you, and it can also get you penalized.

16. Cloaking. This technique involves making the same web page show different content to search engines and to human visitors. The purpose is to get the page ranked for specific keywords, and then use the incoming traffic to promote unrelated products or services. This practice is considering spamming and can get you penalized (if not banned) on most search engines.

17. Web Crawler: Also called search bot or spider, it’s a computer program that browses the web on behalf of search engines, trying to discover new links and new pages. This is the first step on the indexation process.

18. Duplicate Content: Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. You should avoid having duplicate content on your website because it can get you penalized.

19. Canonical URL: Canonicalization is a process for converting data that has more than one possible representation into a “standard” canonical representation. A canonical URL, therefore, is the standard URL for accessing a specific page within your website. For instance, the canonical version of your domain might be http://www.domain.com instead of http://domain.com.

20. Robots.txt: This is nothing more than a file, placed in the root of the domain, that is used to inform search bots about the structure of the website. For instance, via the robots.txt file it’s possible to block specific search robots and to restrict the access to specific folders of section inside the website.

Daniel Scocco

10 Blog Post Ideas You Can Use Right Now

Stuck for an idea? Not sure how to structure your post? Use one of these handy suggestions (you might even want to print out the list and keep it near your computer).

And if you’ve got a favorite post type or template, let us know in the comments!

#1: The Beginner’s Guide to…

Even if you’ve not been blogging in your niche for very long, you can write a beginner’s guide. In fact, you’re in a great position to do so: you’ll be able to remember all the questions you had when you were just starting out.

#2: How to…

One very simple way to create a strong title is to start with the words “How to.” When you plan your post, come up with 5 – 10 steps to take readers through the process of accomplishing a particular task.

#3: 10 Tips and Tricks For…

Often, you’ll have lots of good advice that readers can pick and choose from — it doesn’t need to be followed step by step. In this case, a “tips and tricks” post works well. Come up with 10 or so strong ideas, and make sure each one can stand alone.

#4: The A-Z Guide To…

It takes some work to put together an A-Z guide … but this sort of post can make a fantastic resource for readers. You could write an A-Z guide for your whole niche (e.g. “The A-Z Guide to Blogging”) or for an aspect of your niche (e.g. “The A-Z Guide to Writing Great Content”).

#5: This [Week’s / Month’s] Best Posts On…

A round-up post is a great way to establish your expertise: it shows that you’ve got your finger on the pulse of what’s happening around the internet. By collating great recent posts (perhaps from the last week or month), you also point readers towards valuable resources.

#6: The Pros and Cons of…

Even if you have a strong personal opinion about a particular issue, you might want to present a balanced view. A “pros and cons” post can help do that — you give readers the advantages, and then the disadvantages, of a particular action/product/etc.

#7: How I …. And How You Can Too

This type of post works really well whether you’re new to your niche, or an established expert. Think of something you’ve accomplished that your readers would love to do — and tell them how you did it. Make sure you include some tips on how they can emulate your success.

#8: Seven Ways To…

This is a bit like a how-to post with a twist: you’re offering a bunch of different possible ways to do something. There’s often not a one-size-fits-all solution, so help your readers explore different ideas and encourage them to try a new technique.

#9: Review of…

Whatever niche you’re in, there’ll be books, products, services, and even other blogs that you can review. If there’s a major book or product coming out, get your hands on it as soon as you can (you might even ask the publisher for an advance copy) and let your readers know what you thought.

#10: What 5 Experts Say About…

Perhaps you know your readers want a post about a particular topic — but you don’t feel you know enough to write that post. Instead of trying to come up with the content yourself, look at blogs, books, or articles to see what experts in your field have said. (Make sure you attribute each quote.)

Do you have a favorite post type from the ones above… or a different idea to suggest? Let us know in the comments!

Bio: Ali Luke writes a regular column for DailyBlogTips. She will be leadingblogging courses in London from September. If you’d like to learn more about blogging, with hands-on exercises and one-to-one support as part of a small group, then book your place today.

Socialize and grow your blog with Google+

Blogger lets you share your thoughts, grow your readership, and engage with your audience. But we want to make Blogger even better by letting you tap into the growing Google+ community. Today, we’re adding a new “Google+” tab in the Blogger dashboard, so you now have a central place to start growing your blog with Google+. This means you can now:

Connect your blog to a Google+ profile or page

If you blog under your own name, you’ve already been able to associate your blog with your personal Google+ profile. Starting today, you can now connect your blog to a Google+ page for your brand, business or organization.

Notify followers when you publish, and let them recommend your content

Each time you post on your blog, we'll show you a Google+ share box to let you notify followers that you have new blog content. If they like what you share, followers can +1 or reshare your post to their own friends on Google+. This ripple effect exposes links to your content to a wider audience.

Build enduring connections with your audience

Adding the Google+ gadget to your blog makes it easy for people to add your profile or page to their circles when they like something you’ve published. Forming connections with readers that last after they've left your blog is essential. 

To get started, click the “Google+” tab in the Blogger dashboard and then the “Upgrade” button. If you’ve already upgraded to Google+, we’ll help you associate your blog with your profile or page.

We'll be introducing more settings on this tab in the future, so stay tuned for additional ways to get more out of Blogger with Google+. If you have questions, you can learn more in our Help Center.