As a web developer I want to build each website to be as stable as possible so as it looks the same across all browsers while remaining accessible and validating to W3C requirements. There are a lot of hoops to jump through and with a large build some of the finer details can slip through the net if you’re not careful. Images are used extensively on many websites with some contributing to design and some contributing to content. When it comes to optimising images for SEO purposes it’s the images in the content you need to concentrate on. Google image search has the potential to bring in a fair amount of traffic to your website, and as such optimising your images can have a positive affect on your visitor numbers. In this article we will explore some best practices for SEO image optimisation.
File Type
File type can be a subjective matter. Site speed has become one of the many ranking factors in the Google algorithm. As such, the larger file types should be avoided. Gifs will offer you a small file size but at reduced quality. They are perfect for background images, gradients, shadows, etc. However, for larger images such as logos and images that accompany the main content they are not ideal, in these cases a jpeg is the better option. If your designer is a little fussy then he or she may want images to be in PNG format to support vector images. Compromise is the key in this instance.
Image Size
Once again, with site speed being one of the many ranking factors, image size can play a huge part in reducing your websites load times. Avoid using unnecessarily large pictures and use the appropriate file type for the images. Using the ‘Save For Web’ feature in Photoshop can also help toward reducing file size. From a user experience perspective, unnecessarily large images may contribute to a bad user experience. If a larger image is needed, consider linking from a smaller image or employing a JavaScript / jQuery light box plugin.
Image Location
Avoid placing images in the root folder of your site. It’s always appropriate to have a folder called ‘images’ in the root of your website and to locate all of your images there. You may also find it useful to have category folders within the image folder for organisational means. Avoid saving your images to an eternal location, this will increase the load time for your site.
Image Naming
It is good practice to name your images appropriately. You can use your targeted keywords to name images to give an accurate reference to what’s in the image. Avoid using generic names such as ‘photo1.jpg’ or a non-relevant structure ‘catpic22356.jpg’. As an example, if you are naming a photo of a car, a naming structure of ‘manufacturer-type’ is appropriate. E.g. ‘volvo-saloon.jpg’
Alt Tags
The alt attribute is a key element to accessibility and is there to give end users who have images turned off or who use screen readers an accurate description of what that images depicts. As such the alt attribute should be used correctly. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t include a couple of keywords to the description.
Content Placement
Once you have your image in place on your page, placing relevant text before and after the images is essential. This can be a perfect opportunity to target long tail key phrases, the traffic obtained from long tail phrases will be much lower than a glamour term but you will find that the conversion rate from long tail traffic will be much higher.
Robots.txt
Finally, insure that your robots.txt file it not excluding access to your image folders.
Guest post by: Alex is a dolphin trainer and swimming pool owner who loves swimming pools and replacing swimming pool filters. You can find him on Twitter here @harvey1dash8.
Last week Google released some major changes to their search algorithms. The aim of this update was to push content farms and low quality content sites further down the list.
Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts wrote on the Google blog:
This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
Since that time we have noticed that our organic traffic from Google has nosedived. Crenk isnt a content farm and we aren’t a low quality content source!
Can someone at Google please get in touch and let us know why we are being heavily punished!
P.S. This seems to have changed our traffic numbers, but somehow the content scraper that is HuffingtonPost hasn’t lost any traffic at all.
There’s a lot of sites out there that offer collaboration tools. From the simplified office collaboration tools like Google Documents and Zoho Writer, to the more sophisticated like Basecamp. In the end each of them appeal to different markets, different segments of the industry and each of them function differently. So with those options we choose one that best fits our needs and we run with it. But what if there was a sexier option, something with real personality, but still maintaining all the same functionality?
Now there is. Introducing WIPspace, the creative collaboration tool that offers up multiple levels of engagement in a sleek, sexy, yet functional package. The image blow is a visual diagram of all the things WIPspace is capable of.
You feeling it yet? There’s real fire under this engine, and the multitude of offerings it has makes it a very robust package. Working on projects or movies, this space allows you to fully interact with off-site teams, and engage the client all at the same time.
Be sure to watch the videos and test drive it. Let us know what you think and how it compares with Basecamp or some of the other collaboration tools out there.
It’s not uncommon for us here at Crenk to come across web applications that do the same thing, the only differences are that some might do it better or worse than another. In this case, the team has come across a very interesting music listening application called TubeRadio.
Once again for the music lover in all of us, this just astounds me. Now it does not have the capability to tap into your own stored music, but as powerful as this search engine is, this could very well replace my Pandora or Last.Fm efforts, even if only for a little while. TubeRadio calls itself the Youtube for music. After you see the video below, you’ll know what I mean.
So what do you think? They search is amazing and very thorough. I’m surprised at how music it can find, and even more so by how seamless the integration of listening and/or watching your music can be. During the video the speaker mentions it being like your personal MTV. Yeah, MTV, from when it used to actually play music.
My experience with TubeRadio has been a good one. I’ve found what I want to listen to, it streams everything smoothly with little problem. In my opinion the only thing really missing is the ability to tap into my own music, but I can overlook that for now since I’m lining up some great music of my own, and of other recommended playlists.
Search has become a hot topic for the past year. Bing, Google, Yahoo, and others have fought for dominance and in this battle, users have been introduced to a bevy of innovations in their searches. The concept of search is nice, type in a few words, or phrases and find content directly related to your query. Some searches are more successful than others all the while introducing users to content across hundreds of thousands of pages. Still, most users will not go past the first two or three pages at most.
SurfCanyon strives to change the user’s search experience and focus not just on getting content, but becoming a tool for discovery. Much like a tool we spoke about some time ago, Worio, SurfCanyon attaches itself to your browser of choice and adds a target tab that allows for further discover of related content right from your normal search. The reason behind such an app is the fact that sometimes your content is not where you expect it. I with users not typically going past page 3, SurfCanyon will pull related content together for you and place it right under all the links you see on the first page.
You don’t just get deeper results, but as seen below you can dig even deeper into your results. This provides a real drill down experience for search discovery. This immersive search experience might be something you’ve been longing for. There’s lots of results to search through and the concept is to provide you answers for even the most complicated of queries.
If you are a geek blogger like me, you would know that the having a good ranking within the most important search engines it is a big deal if you are trying to promote your blog. KPMRS (Keyword Position Monitoring Report Service) can help you with that by monitoring constantly the page rank you have with Google, Yahoo and Bing.
How to use it is very simple, you don’t even have to be registered to receive any result, you can query and get some instant results about your site and a special keyword. The free registration can also give you: Email Alerts (when position changes or when a competitor has passed you); weekly reports; and monitor for Google’s Page Rank and Alexa.
Here’s a query about my blog with a keyword that I know I have a good ranking about it:
It is pretty cool to have these results and see the differences between the search engines; and of course will be very helpful to you if you are setting up your business to evaluate the status of popularity.
There’s a lot of sites out there that offer collaboration tools. From the simplified office collaboration tools like 
It’s not uncommon for us here at Crenk to come across web applications that do the same thing, the only differences are that some might do it better or worse than another. In this case, the team has come across a very interesting music listening application called 
If you are a geek blogger like me, you would know that the having a good ranking within the most important search engines it is a big deal if you are trying to promote your blog. 
