May

...this phrase emerged in the USA in the early part of the 20th century and has been generally interpreted to mean that a picture tells a story just as well as a large amount of descriptive text  ...while this is certainly true for us humans, this is 'not' so much the case when it comes to Search Engines and our websites

...in my last article, I discussed 'optimizing' your images for use on your web pages, however, my last article only addressed the issue of optimizing your image's 'file size', allowing for the quickest possible load times of your web pages while maintaining acceptable image quality, which is the first step when adding images to your site's pages  ...the next step is to optimize your images so that they will be 'seen' by 'Search Engines' as well as by the human visitors to your website

...how do Search Engines 'see' images? - images (graphics) are made up of 'bits' and 'not' text, so Search Engines can not compare a user's search query words within a graphic image - Search Engines rely on 'indirect' techniques  ...while Search Engines can not 'see' images as we humans do, most do indeed see them in their own way - however, this requires assistance from us humans  ;-)

...most Search Engines will assume that an image on a web page with a file name with the suffix of ".jpg" is a photo or illustration of some kind  ...an image's 'file name' is very important for graphic image optimization  ...as including 'spaces' in 'any' file name for use on the web is NOT recommended (as most browsers will replace a "space character" with "%20") it has long been recommended that to make file names more 'readable' for us humans that spaces be replaced with a hyphen or an underscore  ...a long-time practice by many 'programmers' has also been to capitalize the first letter of subsequent words, like myLastVacation.jpg

...first, if you 'want' an image to be recognized by Search Engines, do 'not' use the 'programmers' method and use hyphens and not underscores within your file names  ...most Search Engines can determine what a photo is by the image name - e.g. logo.jpg or logo.gif is 'a logo', dog-house.jpg is a photo of a 'dog house', however, a file name such as dogHouse_12.jpg conveys no useful information to a Search Engine

...second, be certain to utilize the 'title' and 'alt' tags for all of your images within your web page's code - be specific as well as descriptive, as the 'alt' tag of an image is not only displayed on your web page in place of the image if a user has their browser preferences set to 'not' display images (or if the image is missing or corrupt somehow), but this tag is also used by many 'page readers' utilized by the visually impaired to describe images on a web page

...and finally, if possible and applicable, include preceding descriptive text immediately before an image - e.g. "Below is a picture of our newest dog house."  ...also, where possible, use 'captions' and/or 'labels' for your photos, as this also helps identify the relevant content of the photo you 'want' the Search Engines to 'see', as these act as contextual cues

...depending upon the 'content' of your photographic images, it may 'not' be important, or even desired, that Search Engines 'see' the images on your web pages, however, if a photo is an image of something you make or sell and it has your name and/or logo on it, the 'image' being 'found' by a user 'search query' can help drive traffic to your website  ;-)

...if anyone would like to know more about the types of services I can provide, you can learn more by visiting my web site at: http://www.evadware.com ...I would also be happy to set up a phone call with anyone interested in exploring how I might be of assistance - appointments can be requested through the "Request Info" page at the site, or by dropping me an email here at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

...I also wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy, healthy, fun & love-filled, safe and blessed holiday season

best to all!

:-)

evad