Are Your Images Optimized for Search Engines?

By Li Evans

Have you noticed the changes that have been happening in the search results lately?  I'm not just talking about Google and it's implementation of Universal Search.  Have you stopped to look at Ask and it's "3d" search, and Yahoo's blended results, they too, are incorporating images in new ways for searches.

Image search continually tops all over vertical searches, however, with the advent of incorporating all types of content into search results, optimizing your images for the search engines has now taken on a new role of importance.  Not only does it matter for image search, but optimizing your images has become more of a priority because the greater role they are playing in defining exactly what "Content" is.

Take a look at a search for "Weird Al Yankovic" in Google, Yahoo!, and Ask.

Google Search Results: "Weird Al Yankovic"

Ask Search Results: "Weird Al Yankovic"

Yahoo! Search Results: "Weird Al Yankovic"

 

At SES in San Jose, I gave a presentation about this topic, and showed just how fast results are changing, especially when it comes to images.  This also plays into the role of reputation management with companies, employees, products and services.  In less than 24 hours, when Greg Jarboe first showed the Hurricane Dean search results weren't showing images, I did another search and up popped a picture with the news listings.

This just goes to show, "content" is no longer just characters that form words, sentences and paragraphs.  If you aren't optimizing your images currently, you should be.  If you'd like 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Images for Search Engines, check out my piece over at Search Engine Guide.