Embrace Your Images for Search Engine Optimization

Perhaps the most untapped search engine optimization tool is the optimization of your images. But how do you go about using your images to boost your search engine rankings? Here's how.

You know all about keywords, metadata, link popularity, H1 tags, strong text and the like. Armed with this knowledge, you go about optimizing your web site, only to discover that you still aren't getting the organic search engine visibility that you desire. Perplexed, you wonder why.

You know just enough to be dangerous. To yourself, that is. The term sophomoric comes to mind. From the Greek, sophos (meaning "wise"), and moros (meaning "fool", as in "moron"), perhaps you are a "wise fool".

But wait. Before you get in a snit about being given the appellation wise fool, let's figure out how to get rid of the moros while keeping the sophos.

Likely, one of your biggest problems is the failure to properly optimize your images for search engines. To understand how performing search engine optimization on your images is done, let us first take a look at how search engines ascertain the contents of an image.

It is important to remember that search engines don't see images the way humans do. Images are nothing more than bits of code which tell a computer what color and brightness at which to display any given pixel. While preliminary research has been done in the field of image recognition by search engines, the algorithms are rudimentary at best, doing nothing more than an analysis of colors and brightness, without any real progress being made at identifying the depiction contained within the image.

Therefore, search engines rely on two main algorithms for the identification of the contents of an image. The first is dependent on a contextual analysis, the second is dependent upon what we tell the search engines.

Contextual analysis of images

The contextual analysis of images is primarily based upon (1) the subject matter of the page and (2) the text immediately before, after, or surrounding the image (also known as a caption). Absent any additional information, a search engine will assume that an image on a web page is an image related to the general content of that page, with greater emphasis placed on the text in the immediate vicinity of the image. From an seo perspective, we will assume that your content is already optimized for your desired keyphrases, so (1) above doesn't do much for us. However, a bit of a rankings boost may be obtained by ensuring that your images (regardless of what they are really of) contain keyphrase rich content around them.

However, the real power of images in search engine optimization is found in what we tell the search engines. There are two important techniques for the optimization of images in this manner, which will without a doubt give your site a rankings boost.

Telling the search engines about your images

The first important technique is known as descriptive file naming. A search engine gives much weight to the name of the image file. So, for example, if you are RCA and you have a logo image of a dog with its ear in a gramophone, you might name the image gramophone.jpg or dog.jpg. This is telling the search engines that your image contains content related to dogs or gramophones.

But wait again.

This is also telling the search engines that your web page is about dogs or gramophones. If you are RCA, wouldn't you rather be ranked for a term such as "consumer electronics"? Probably. So, utilizing descriptive file naming, you would want to give your image files names which reflect the general topic of your web site. So, instead of naming the image logo.jpg, banner.gif, dog.jpg, gramophone.jpg, or the like, you would want to name your image something like consumer-electronics-logo.jpg or consumer_electronics_dog.jpg. Now you are using keyphrase rich file names, and giving your site a rankings boost.

The other major way you tell a search engine about your images is via the utilization of image ALT attributes. An ALT atrribute is simple ALTernate text which is used to describe the image. Instead of putting words like "Dog listening to gramophone" in your ALT attribute, you should look at ALT attributes as another opportunity to include your keyphrases on your page. So, we would want the ALT attribute in the case of RCA to say something like "Consumer Electronics".

The failure to properly optimize images in this manner is a major flaw in many attempts at search engine optimization. Following these techniques will, undoubtedly, help your online business to achieve the organic search engine visibility you desire.

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About the author:

About the Author: Matt Foster is the President of ArteWorks Business Class, http://www.arteworks.biz, and is an expert in search engine optimization, regularly achieving top rankings for his clients. Mr. Foster has been active in the industry since 1995. For further information, or to begin the process of optimizing your site for search engines, please contact Mr. Foster toll free at 877-812-2217, or by email to matt@arteworks.biz.

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Ethics of Link Popularity

What is an ethical link popularity scheme?
Right now, the search engine optimization world sits at a point where 95% of practitioners and site owners operate like this...

1.) Word starts to spread that links help your site.

2.) Site owners and marketers rush out to get any and every link that they can.

3.) Word spreads that reciprocal links are pretty easy to get.

4.) Site owners and marketers start spamming the world with link exchange requests.

5.) Word spreads that one-way links "count more."

6.) Site owners and marketers start buying links in a rush to gain those one-ways.

7.) Word spreads that you can "earn" links with great content.

8.) Site owners and marketers start to grumble about how much work this SEO thing is.

Anyone else noticing a pattern?

What tends to happen in this industry is the development of the leaders and the lemmings. The leaders are the those that are out there in the trenches, testing and working and researching to figure out what has an impact. They then share their findings with the lemmings who rush out to implement those findings with no thought as to "why" they are making those changes. The simple fact that the change may help their site is enough of a reason for them.

But that's not good enough.

To see this industry progress, we need to focus on teaching people why the search engines place more value on earned one way links or why content needs to be relevant and engaging rather than mathematically formulated to have the proper number of keywords.

Site owners and marketers need to learn more about how people judge the value of a web site so that they can understand and even anticipate where algorithms may go in the future.

A little common sense applied two or three years ago would have easily made it clear that earned, unsolicited links showed a more honest representation of value than links that were traded or paid for. With that in mind, site owners could have had a hefty head start by spending their time building great content rather than chasing down the next link.

As we move into the future, issues like latent semantic indexing and personalized search will play a powerful role in how search engines put together and deliver results. By taking the time to teach site owners about these concepts and how they might be applied, the SEO industry will be able to teach people how to anticipate what search engines will be looking for, rather than letting those same people play a non-stop game of "catch-up."

Courtesy: http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/007454.html

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Custom 404 Error Pages and Search Optimization

Utilizing descriptive file naming is essential to any quality search engine optimization project. But what about the old file names, which no longer exist? The use of a 404 error page is recommended to avoid search engines finding broken links and non-existent pages.

But what is a 404 error page? To answer this, we must first understand what a 404 error is. A 404 DNS error is commonly known as a File Not Found error. This is what you see when you type in a URL that does not exist into your browser's address bar. Usually, the server returns something akin to 404 - File Not Found. If a search engine comes across such an error, it can have a negative impact on your search engine visibility. The solution to this is the creation of a custom error page, usually named 404.htm. When this page is extant on the server, instead of a File Not Found error being returned, the 404.htm file is returned. It can be thought of as a "catch-all" page, that is displayed when no file corresponding to the file called upon in the address bar exists.

Most good seo's will implement what is known as descriptive file naming as part of a search engine optimization project. In a nutshell, descriptive file naming is simply the naming of HTML files according to the content of that file. Fore example, let's say you own a carwash in Austin, Texas. You have a page which itemizes your various services and their corresponding prices. Currently, the page is named services.htm. After search engine optimization, this page is renamed to something like austin-carwash-services.htm, utilizing a descriptive file naming methodology. The problem is that search engines may have already indexed the services.htm page, or third party (external) web sites may link to the services.htm page. Obviously, you don't want people using these links to reach a non-existent page, and likewise you don't want search engines linking to it or finding non-existent pages. The 404.htm page is also useful in the event external links or user inputs contain typographical errors.

Installing a 404.htm file on the server, and enabling custom error pages in your control panel (if necessary), solves the problem. Any user who clicks on a link to the old services.htm page reaches the 404.htm page instead of receiving a 404 DNS error. Search engines do the same thing. This ensures that no user is left stranded in "no man's land", and increases web site "stickiness".

Critical Elements of a 404 Error Page

Remembering that the 404.htm file will be encountered any time a 404 error would otherwise be returned, it is intuitive that the page must contain generic content, related to the overall theme of the site, as opposed to page-specific content. What this means is that creating a 404.htm file, in the example above, solely for the missing page services.htm, would be a mistake. For example, if you created your 404.htm file to be a mirror of the old services.htm file, if someone linked to another non-existent page of your site, for example an about us page named about.htm which has been renamed, they would land on the 404.htm page containing service information. This would likely lead to confusion on the part of the user. As such, building a 404.htm page with generic information is best practice.

A 404.htm page should hold the same "look and feel" as the rest of the site. Usually, this would mean a banner image with navigation bar, with an area for page-specific body content. Using the CSS or web site page template, create the 404.htm page to contain body text which informs the user of the non-existence of the desired page, and clearly directs the user to important areas of the web site.

So, at a minimum, the 404.htm page would contain the following:

1) Same look and feel as the rest of the site

2) Error message, such as "The page entered was not found on our server. Please try one of the links below to find what you are looking for."

3) Have clearly marked links to the following: Home Page, Site Map, and Contact page.

Many organizations may also wish to include a search box, so that the stranded user could search for the desired information right from the 404 error page.

Things to Avoid in a 404 Error Page

As previously stated, avoid the use of page-specific information on a 404 error page. Make sure the page contains general information with links as to how to get home, get to the site map, and contact the company.

The use of a 404.htm error page that is simply a mirror of the home page can be confusing and lead to a user abandoning the site. This practice should be avoided.

The use of a javascript or other redirect to the home page, even with a delay informing the user of the impending redirect, should be avoided. Not only does this lead to the problem mentioned above, but other undesired effects can occur. For example, check out this post from www.cre8asiteforums.com:

"Personally think it's a bit dangerous to have a 404 page linked to the homepage.

"We launched a site with that recently, something was a bit wrong with the homepage, and something was returning a 404, so it created an endless loop that knackered the server and caused the site to be horrendously slow. Not good...."

This is an example of something gone horribly wrong using a 404 page to redirect to another page.

Summary

The use of a 404.htm custom error page is recommended for both search engine optimization and user friendliness. Following the guidelines herein will ensure that both your users and search engines can find the relevant content for which they are looking.

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About the Author: Matt Foster is the President of ArteWorks Business Class, http://www.arteworks.biz, and is an expert in search engine optimization, regularly achieving top rankings for his clients. Mr. Foster has been active in the industry since 1995. For further information, or to begin the process of optimizing your site for search engines, please contact Mr. Foster toll free at 877-812-2217, or by email to matt@arteworks.biz.

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