A few weeks ago I decided I needed to do a crash course in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I knew very little about SEO and wanted to learn how to better utilize it. I started to read everything I could find on the subject with the hopes that I would hone some new skills. Low and behold I came across an article about labeling your pictures for search engines. It had never occurred to me that search engines can't read my picture. Without me giving them details about the picture they don't see it, so that could really be costing me page views since I use almost as many images as I do text on my site.
While learning how to label my pictures I also discovered something else. My pictures titles and descriptions are what Pinterest was grabbing as my labels! That means I could somewhat control what the image description was when people pin from my site! I am slowly going back and relabeling all of my pictures and am already seeing some great results from it!
Here is a quick tutorial for how to label your pictures in Blogger.
- Hover your mouse over your image and click. You should see a blue box pop up. You can adjust your image size and location using this box. You can also add a caption if so desired.
- Click on "Properties" to add a custom description.
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| This image is from a recent post on keeping your family safe online. |
- Once you have opened the image properties box, your will see a place to put in your image title. If you have more than one image on a page, give them different titles. Since this particular image was the only one in this post, I just gave it the same title as the post.
- Here is the trick for Pinterest. If people are pinning from a pin it button on your image, it will most likely pull the image description from this title. This is your chance to really optimize those pins. Beyond the title, use hashtags, and I have also started to use my twitter handle which also happens to be my Pinterest handle as well. This means every time someone pins or tweets that image, I will get mentioned. Be sure to include your keyword(s) in your title for best SEO.
- The next line down says alt text: This is the spot for you to describe your picture for the search engines. Remember, they can't see your image, only how you describe it. Many people search images. I know I have found some of my favorite hair and party blogs that way. This is simply making it easier for your images to show up in those image searches. For this picture I wrote baby clicking a computer mouse and then used my full title from above. On my page if someone pins using the button from the left side of my page it will pull the description from this alt text.
- Click OK and your all set! Once you publish that post, your image will be optimized for search engines and your labels for Pinterest customized. (Side Note: If someone pins using the generic Blogger Pinterest button on the bottom of your blogger post next to comments, only your post title will show up)
For more Pinterest tips read 5 Tips for Making Pinterest Work for You
I knew to label my pictures, but always did so prior to adding them to my post. I'll use the properties now. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteit really does make a big difference, at least for me it has. I never labeled them any other way, so not sure how much of a difference it might make for your situation Annette. It will help with Pinterest though!
DeleteI've only started doing this recently, and YES it's so important. Especially with Pinterest, a lot of people won't change whatever name you gave the image, so how not fun it is for someone to pin from your site and only get a IMG_2938.jpg as a caption? Ugh. Also, SEO. But I only started doing it because it annoyed me about Pinterest captions :)
ReplyDeleteI agree Anita! I hate going to pin something and having to put in a whole caption for it because all that was there was the img number.
DeleteI use wordpress and there is an seo plug-in that you can add that will tell you how well each individual post does...it started alerting me about putting captions that include your keyword for your post on pictures so that when someone googles a particular word (or group of words - through images) your post will show up (because of how you've labeled your pictures). It's fascinating how it works, isn't it? I've barely scratched the surface of SEO through this plug-in but have seen some great results from using it.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds really useful Amanda! Blogger doesn't have anything like that (at least that I know of) but sure would be nice to have! :)
DeleteVERY smart tips! Like Anita, I hate when I see a pin on Pinterest with a weird description because the blogger didn't re-title the image.
ReplyDeleteYup! Right there with you Mindy! I have to admit, that I probably had quite a few get pinned that way before I learned this trick! :)
DeleteGreat post. I definitely need to do this.
ReplyDeleteYes! Marty you have such beautiful pictures on your page of your projects! Start doing it so they can be seen even more! :)
DeletePinterest often pulls the alt text instead of the title text from my images. Do you have any idea why this would happen? It has made me stop using the alt text, because it looks stupid on Pinterest to just have a bunch of random keywords.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why Lara. That is why I started to put a description in that section as well. Seems to work well for both.
DeleteLabeling Images for Better SEO is really so vital and I think that through reading out this input readers will able to understand the things more effectively. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThis is an amazing tip! I have started using it on all my images - thank you so much for the tip!! I find SEO is so much harder to use on Blogger than it seems on wordpress, as blogger doesn't have any of these plug ins that wordpress does!! But this helps loads :)
ReplyDelete