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Is anyone here aware of best practices for images SEOs? The blogs here are indexed well by Google but the image searches are not that great. What am I missing?
My naming scheme for images almost always contains dashes between two words and assuming alt-text is provided by WordPress when we insert.
The blog I need help with is ismailimail.wordpress.com.
The Google image crawler is a slow crawler. It cannot "see" images and requires descriptive tags and text to index properly. Without an ALT tag, and description Google will likely fail to index your images correctly according to the keywords you select. Note that it takes up to 6 months for Google image search to find your pictures, but it will miss your pictures altogether if you don’t use ALT tags and the description field correctly. I have dedicated a post to this important topic http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/blogging-images-enhance-your-posts/
Thanks for the tips, I just realized that wordpress.com isn't adding Alt text unless I go to the second tab and add it myself. BTW, does naming your image a certain way makes any difference?
Right. The software doesn't "make up" ALT text because like the crawler it's not human and cannot "see". We bloggers have to insert the alternate text and the description. The name you give to the image does make a difference. Be crystal clear. Example: old man sitting on rock is better than "grandfather".
That was a poor example :( Yes, you can and ought to use appropriate and relevant keywords when naming images.
Google image searches are one of the major referrers to my blog, and YES, always use keywords, description etc. I'm not sure how the Caption code adds to that, but it sure can't hurt.
Google searches for images also bring my blogs in hits as well. I don't use captions but I agree that using them can't hurt.
is slow but effective and not competitive from the marketing prostect
@puntacanavacationpackages
As wordpress.COM blogs are non-commercial blogs that cannot either drive traffic to third party sites or have advertising I do not comprehend the context for comment regarding "marketing prospects".
@ismailimail: To get the crawler's view use a text based browser like lynx. Or add google webmaster tools and then from the left menu bar select Labs->Fetch as Google Bot and enter the page you want to see as a google bot, click fetch, and then click on the link appears in the below list. Read http://en.support.wordpress.com/webmaster-tools/ to know how to add your blog in google webmaster tools.
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