9 Ways to Improve Google Image Search Rankings and Drive More Traffic to Your Site

Question: How do I improve my Google Image Search Results?

Ranking high in Google’s image search can increase your traffic considerably. This is especially true if you can rank in the top three for search results that show images above the organic search results.

There are much less variables to consider with image search than with organic search. Some of them are:

• File name
• Image Alt tags
• Image Title tags
• Size of the image
• Text around the image
• Title tag, meta tags, header tags, and the relevancy of the content on the page
• Links coming into the image
• Links coming into the page the image is on
• Authority or Page Rank of the page the image is on
• How old the image, page and site are

Try the following to improve your Google image search rankings:

1. Make your images large - Large images tend to rank higher than smaller images. I recommend making images you want to rank high in searches at least 10,000 square pixels. An image that is larger than 333 pixels wide by 334 pixels tall would work.

   I just did an image search for internet marketing and there were only two images with less than 10,000 square pixels on the first results page.

   Make sure to specify the width and the height of the image in your html.

2. Put your keywords in the file name - If you want your image to rank high for the term ‘internet marketing’, name it ‘internet-marketing.jpg‘.

3. Put your keywords in the Alt tags - This is probably the most obvious thing to do. Alt tags are designed to provide alternative text when images cannot be displayed. They should describe what the image is about.

   Example: <img src="internet-marketing.jpg" width =”400″ height =”400″ alt="Internet Marketing">

4. Put your keywords in the image title tag - Many people don’t realize that there is a title tag associated with images. The text in the title tag is shown when the user mouses over the image. Put the same text in the title tag that you put in the Alt tag.

   Example: <img src =”internet-marketing.jpg” width =”400″ height =”400″ alt =”Internet Marketing ” title =”Internet Marketing “>

5. Put your keywords in the text close to the image - I recommend putting descriptive text that includes your keywords below each image that you want to rank high in image searches. This is just more information for Google to use in determining what your image is about.

6. Optimize your page for the keywords - Include the keywords in the title tags, meta tags, header tags and the body copy of your page. Keyword density of the page that the image is on is very important.

7. Create an image site map - I have just started testing this out, but I have high hopes for it. Create a page with text links to all the images on your site that you want to rank high in image searches. Use the appropriate keywords for your anchor text when linking to the images.

   An image site map is a great way to get links that come directly into your images and it lets the search engines know more about what the images are about.

8. Increase the authority of your web site - Images on pages with high Page Rank tend to rank higher in image searches. Build links into the page where the image is located and both your organic and image search rankings should improve.

9. Prevent the framing of your web site with javascript - You can stop Google from framing your web site by adding javascript code to your pages.

   The idea here is that when somebody clicks on the image thumbnail in the search results they will go directly to the page on your site where the image is located without seeing the Google frame that has a direct link to the image. You should get more page views by using this javascript. I’m not sure if Google will penalize your site for using such code.

I would love to hear of any other techniques that you have found successful for increasing your image search results.

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[…] 9 Ways to Improve Google Image Search Rankings and Drive More Traffic to Your Site […]

very informative. thanks for that info mate.

[…] A lot of times when we think about rankings in the search engines, we think about the search results when we type in a keyword. But you can also drive traffic to your blog with images. Virtual Marketing blog has an interesting post about 9 ways to Improve Google Image Search Rankings and drive more traffic to your site. […]

Has anyone seen a significant increase in their site traffic by improving their Google Image Search ranking? I guess every little bit helps, I’m just wondering if I should go back and change all my images. That would take me a while.

Yes, it’s a very good 9 ways tips..

[…] 9 Ways to Improve Google Image Search Rankings and Drive More Traffic to Your Site […]

Really useful tips. Thank you.

Luke excellent post! I would also suggest putting your images in Google’s Picasa photo site and make them public. I did this recently and my images showed up in the Google image SERPs almost immediately. The images did come off my Google Blogger site.

Hey - thanks for these great tips! I’ve bookmarked your post and will experiment with some of these options to see if we can improve our results with images!

Thank you.

Hello, thanks for the tips!
Did you have a chance to test if your rankings have been improved by following these advises?
- Nicola

thanks! great help to me as a novice addressing a crucial issue

Tip number 9 is particularly interesting. Like the others however I would wonder the extent to which it would increase the traffic to your site. Any had any success with it as yet?

I get hundreds of uniques for a very popular search term but from Image search.
However I am very disappointed with the revenue result.
I am trying hard to convert them but the Image results are not that beneficial. Thanks to my server who is able to handle high bandwidth but truth is such results consume too much of the site bandwidth.
My last months bandwidth used for a high traffic site solely from image search was 1.5 gb!!!
Revenue : $8 just enough for my hosting costs

[…] fourth creative way is to create an image site map. Create a page where you link to all your images. Site maps are great for SEO in general, maybe […]