Search engine optimisation is the process of making a website or webpage search friendly so that it attracts visitors from Google, Yahoo and other search sites. This normally involves targeting specific keywords and keyphrases - i.e. anticipating what people are going to type in to find your site and then using those words or phrases heavily in their content and titles in order to ensure their sites come up near the top in those searches.

As the process normally involves 'keywords' and 'keyphrases' this means that people normally think of the written content of their site most when it comes to SEO. However this is something of a mistake as it leaves out another very important element of optimisation – the images – and there are many ways in which you can optimise these to help promote your site on search engines.

This then means that image searches using Google or other search engines will bring up your site, and that will very often lead to viewers scrolling through the pages to find the context of the image. This can attract a whole different audience to those searching for articles who might not otherwise have discovered you site.

First of all, ensure that you choose the file names for your images carefully. Here your filenames should reflect the terms often used in search queries in just the same way that your written content does. This will require research as well as common sense. If you have a picture of a celebrity such as Jennifer Aniston then, make the filename 'Jennifer-Aniston.jpg' rather than 'Jenny' which is too vague or 'Jennifer-going-shopping-and-looking-good.jpg' which no one is likely to type.

Similarly if she's been in the press recently and this is relevant to your image then you can take advantage of that fact with a filename such as 'Jennifer-Aniston-new-boyfriend.jpg'. Recognise here though that you can probably afford to aim a little higher with your image names than you would with your web pages; while you would have a very hard time getting your article to the top of searches for 'Jennifer Aniston' you stand a much better chance of getting your picture to list highly.

Similarly be sure to pay attention to the text and the meta tags surrounding your image. This means including relevant terms (usually the same as your image name) in the alt tag, title tag and in any links. The text surrounding the image should all be relevant and should include the keyword too in much the same way it would for searching content.

Finally, try to make your images stand out. The great thing about image search is that viewers can see exactly what the image is before they decide to click it or not. As such, try to ensure that your image is high quality, relevant (in that it reflects its name and the search term you've targeted) and bold enough to stand out in a crowd. Don't think of your pictures second any more, but give them just as much time and thought as your content.

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Article Submitted By: kate101
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