The biggest problem with most image SEO advice is that it focuses too much on what images you should take and how you should take them. Often this advice is based on the assumption that you are in a photogenic profession where it is both easy and wise to take photos of what you are offering and where you are offering it. But what if your services appear only as brainwaves in your head, your products are visually appealing, or your place of business looks like Sanford & Son's? Even if your photos don't look that good, you still need to give them some standing.

Another problem is that a lot of advice is perfectionist and fussy. It focuses too much on technical steps that most people can't or won't bother with, that your competitors don't seem to bother with, and that probably won't be particularly rewarded by Google. (I call it SEOCD.) What is really important and what is only moderately or potentially helpful?

Another problem is that most photo SEO advice is not targeted to the local area Search visibility affects visibility and is therefore not typically spelled accurately How Photos are designed to help your local rankings.

On the last point, let me explain exactly how editing your photos can help your local SEO:

These are the goals. To this end, this post is intended to be a quick guide What to do with every photo you want to use to increase your local visibility?

Here are 19 steps you can consider for each photo. In my experience the first 6 are very important and the last 13 are useful if you can.

Top local SEO steps for your photos:

1. Name the image file accordingly. Go to the carotid artery. As in: miami-ultrasonic-rhinoplasty-patient-before-and-after.jpg, cleveland-crawl-space-encapsulation-example.png, ford-f150-interior-detailing-upholstery-cleaned.png, etc.

2. Specify an Alt attribute This is absolutely relevant and descriptive. It should basically be the same as the file name (without hyphens, of course). If the file name isn't relevant and is just gibberish “IMG007.jpg” and you can't change it, make the alt attribute relevant and descriptive anyway (e.g. “Ford F-150 Interior Detailing – Upholstery Cleaned”) .

3. Provide a relevant title attribute. (That is not the same as an alt attribute and is also not the same as the title tag.) This should roughly match the filename and alt.

4. The file name, ALT key, title or caption (or a combination thereof) contain keywords beyond the name of the service, product or city. if possible. Like “buy” or “order online” or “mobile” or “sample” or “before and after”. Or the price or the year the photo was taken. You have the idea. Some modifiers can help you achieve easy rankings.

5. Make sure the photo is not huge. In general, I prefer photos that are between 600 and 1000 pixels wide. The people on your site want help and you want them to pay you for something. They are not there for an IMAX experience.

6. Add the photo to multiple pages on your website. It's best to do it on a few sites where there are already promotions. Especially this Home page“service” pages and “City” Pages.

Bonus photo SOPs (do these whenever possible and appropriate):

7. Caption the photo. The label should more or less reflect the file name, alt attribute and title attribute.

8. Hyperlink the photo to the page that is most relevant to what is shown in the photo. Preferably a “Service”, “Product” or “City” page. In other words, make the photo clickable and ensure it takes people where they should see it.

9. Link the caption, also, or part of it. You'll probably link the caption to the same page that the photo itself links to, but it's not a problem to mix them up.

10. Try to give each page at least one photo that you have optimized (as much as you can). It's not a problem to reuse the same photo occasionally. Sometimes it's okay to burp again.

12. On each Gallery, Portfolio, or Our Work page, add at least some written word content to the surrounding page. In other words, don't just upload a bunch of photos. Instead, also add text that describes what is in the photo, what happened before or after the photo was taken, where it happened, etc.

You want the page to rank with or without the help of the photo. Additionally, when the page ranks, you want the photo to appear in the organic SERPs on the right.

13. Avoid unnecessary technology: Plugins (e.g. Envira), sliders, lightboxes, etc. Just add the photo to the page. It's also okay to have fancy galleries. Just don't put all your pictures in this bag.

14. Upload the photo to your Google business profile page. Won't improve your organic visibility in the slightest, but may help you a little on the map.

15. Upload the photo to citation sources that allow photos. Especially Yelp and Facebook and everyone else Barnacle locations.

16. Make sure your robots.txt file doesn't do this disallow /wp-content or the subdirectory where you store your images (if you host them yourself instead of using a CDN).

17. If possible, take advantage of the EXIF ​​data by taking the photo yourself or having a buddy take it. That's usually all you need to do to get the location information (e.g. “geotagging”) integrated into the photo. Sure, it's a waste of time related to uploading photos to your GBP page (at a certain point it's probably a waste of time). But on your website it might help you a little.

18. Check Search Console occasionally for spikes in visibility because one of your images becomes visible in search results. This is a sign that you probably missed the landing.

Additionally, there are some steps that even I don't bother with. This includes Create a Image sitemap, tagging photos with scheme and compressing the images. Help? Perhaps. If you can do them easily, you will have more power.

What other strategy steps are worth considering? I suggest reading it this post from the big ones Chris Silver Smith. (It's from 2007 and helped me when I was FNG, and the advice is still relevant today.)

Anyone can have a well-optimized website, and many people do. It definitely helps. Even if you've put a tremendous amount of effort into creating your written content, it's not hard for others to rip you off and enjoy many of the benefits. But a strong photo game is a lot harder to rip off. It helps you rank in areas and in ways that some competitors don't or can't, and it makes your website more informative, more entertaining, more engaging, easier to navigate, and more compelling. The hard part is taking, creating or scrounging the photos. Once you've done that, optimizing the resulting bejeebers is just a little extra effort, and you'll find it's worth the effort.

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How do these suggestions relate to your experience?

Are there any other SOPs for photo optimization?

Would you like to show me and other readers your photography game or that of a competitor?

Leave a comment!