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How To Make Google See Your ImagesGoogle is blind. Google can read text, but its spiders cannot see pictures. Your photos can be powerful selling tools to your visitors and, if processed correctly, your photos and images can literally attract visitors to your website. All images on your website need to have descriptive filenames and correct HTML 'ALT tags'. An ALT tag is simply a text description of the photo.
Why is this important?
People will search for information about a 'Swedish Cope Saddle Notch Corner,' but no one will be searching for 'image24.jpg.' As you build your website and add images and photos, name those graphics using descriptive filenames. Optimizing images with the 'ALT tag' The ALT tag is an abbreviation for the term 'alternative' description. If you hover your cursor over a photo (online you may see the ALT text display as "Swedish Cope Saddle Notch Corner." ALT tags also play a part when pages are viewed in a browser that is not displaying images. Why do we need ALT tags? Some browsers and smart phones (PDAs, etc.) do not display images, and people sometimes select the option in their browser to not display images. In these cases, the Alt tag is displayed in lieu of the image. By using these tags, your visitors (and Google's spiders) will know what that image is on your page. Combined with a descriptive filename, this is powerful SEO medicine! What does an ALT tag look like? The actual HTML code for our corner log image is below. All of the descriptors in this string of HTML text are tags used to identify and position the image on the page. Note the "alt." <img height="116" src="images/swedish_cope_saddle_notch_corner.jpg" width="154" border="0" alt="Swedish Cope Saddle Notch Corner" /> Sizing images and photos All of us have visited websites where we watch a page load (YAWN) and a photo seems to appear in slow motion. It displays on the page as if it is being painted line by line. In 99.9% of those instances, the photo is high-resolution (high-res) and has not been sized properly for Internet usage. Size really does matter! The two images below are both displayed (on a webpage) as 250 x 187 pixels, but there is one HUGE difference between them. Their file sizes are entirely different.
Why is sizing images so important?
It's good SEO! Search engine spiders will often abandon a page that loads too slowly. You may have the most breathtaking photos imaginable, but Google can't see them and their spider may leave your site if your pages load too slowly. FYI, soon Google will be adding a new algorithm that determines how your site ranks based upon how fast your site loads. Your visitor's experience Not all of your visitors have high-speed Internet and waiting for a 1.5 Mb image to load can take a long time on a 56k dial-up account. Like the search engine spider, most visitors will NOT wait for a slow page. They'll hit the back button and leave your site immediately. The left image loads in less than .5 second on a high speed internet connection while the image on the right takes about 6 seconds on a high speed internet connection. Image if a customer still has dial up connection! High-Resolution vs. Web Images Your digital camera and scanner produces images in high-resolution from 300 to 2400 DPI (Dots Per Inch) or greater. However our computer monitors only display resolutions of 72 DPI. This is why so many people end up using 'high-res' photos on their website. They snap a picture or scan a photo and use that image in their page. Before an image is used it must be reduced in physical size…and named descriptively. It is outside the purpose of this tuturial to provide software support so we can't go into the process of sizing an image for the web, but we will point you to a couple free resources that can do it for you (see below). Royalty Free Photos Sometimes you need a photo or illustration to emphasize a point or accentuate your page. You might want to have a visual call to action such as signs, arrows, people, etc. This is especially true when the image you need is outside of your product/service photo library. There are many great ‘Royalty Free” image (and video) sites that have files for every conceivable topic. Unlike stock photos for print applications, you can buy most images you’ll need paying as little as $1.00. A few of the sites we use are DreamsTime, iStockphoto, and Bigstockphoto.
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