Image Name SEO

If you want to up your SEO game, you need to learn how to do image name SEO to get ahead of your competitors because, spoiler alert, they're probably not doing it right. Google image SEO is a bonus benefit of this super easy SEO strategy. Google can read the image file name on all of the images you use on your website or blog. When you optimize those names, it makes it easier for you to rank! 

Get Started with Image Name SEO

When creating images for your website or blog, you want to use your keyword in the file names. Take a minute and change the numerical code to words. It’s that easy. There are some best practices for image file naming, so let’s review that quickly so that you know what to do on your website or blog.

Image Name SEO Best Practices

• Use your most important keyword in the image name. For example, if you’re writing a blog post about homemade chocolate cake, you’ll want to use the words homemade chocolate cake for your file name rather than IMG20292.jpg or whatever your camera names it. Example homemade-chocolate-cake.jpg.

• Use dashes (-) between the words in your file name. Google bot reads the dashes as spaces between words. This helps Google bot better understand what your page is about.

• Use your most important keyword at the end of your file name. This one is pretty easy if you have more than one keyword you’re using in a name. We’ll walk through the example in #5 because they go together.

• Add your business name to the image file name for Google images SEO. By adding your business name to the file name, your image may be found in Google Image Search or the search results for your business name. This increases your chances of being found.

• If you’re using both your keyword and your business name, then you’ll want to decide which is more important to you (probably your keyword) and end with that. Example – rachel-bakery-homemade-chocolate-cake.jpg

• Include your location information if you’re a local business and people search for the item by area. If you’re a local bakery and people might search for a homemade chocolate cake in Phoenix, AZ, then using your location in your copy and image file names can help your SEO Example – Phoenix-homemade-chocolate-cake.jpg

Final Thoughts on image name SEO

Optimizing your file names for SEO can help Google better understand your website page or blog post. It’s one more signal to Google that you have this content. Spending a few minutes renaming and optimizing your image files can help your overall SEO results.

If you're wondering if you need to change all the names on your website or blog photos you've published previously, it's up to you. Yes, it can benefit you, but it can also be a very time-consuming project. If you want to have the most SEO impact possible, you'll want to rename them. If you feel the project is too big, start from here and optimize everything new from here forward.

Are you ready to get started with image name SEO?

Request a copy of my free SEO Content Quick Start Guide; it will walk you through how to do image name SEO and everything else you need to do to rank higher on Googe.

Then, take my free class and learn how to supercharge your content with SEO to get more traffic and better-quality leads without buying ads.