Size matters. But so does name! Are you interested in SEO for photos?

Name and Size is everything. And here’s why

We know images speak a thousand words, but make them speak in terms of being optimized for SEO. As YOAST explains ‘an image that is surrounded by related text, ranks better for the keyword it is optimized for’. For file name always describe what we’re seeing.

File names

Here’s an example of the filenames I use for Mind The Music Gap. Put your keywords first i.e. what the subject is about.

Here is one of those photos: a black and white photo of Notre Dame in Paris.

I ran an art and music event last year called T489. Here you can see the search results from Google images.

The photo of the singer in the middle of the photo is called ‘That Virginia’ (awesome singer songwriter by the way). She must have come up in the search because I included in the file name my name as the photographer, plus of course the title of the event.

Now for size

Would you try to squeeze toothpaste through a straw? no. Well, that’s what it’s like for photos. If you have, say, a 3 MB photo, you want to post digitally on social media sites, your viewers are potentially going to encounter slow loading times. Reduce your file sizes. if you have a WordPress site/blog, WordPress provides you options. Photoshop allows you to save for web. There are heaps of tools out there, often for free, so shop around. I use Resizer on my smartphone.

Last thing, Wikipedia says “In situations where the image is not available to the reader, having ‘alternative text’ ensures that no information or functionality is lost.”
To read more about alt tag and title tag optimization check YOAST’s article