Using Keyword Named Folders for Image Optimization SEO

Naming Your Image Folders Greatly Improves Your Image Optimization SEO

Bill Manning
In my last Image Optimization SEO guide, I told how naming your images your key words can improve your image ranking. Another trick is to name the folders your images are in related key words.

Allow me to explain. Say you have a website about clothes on your own host. Your site is called "lotsofclothes.com". You need to make folders to put your images in. Most just use the name folder1, or images.

If you use Wordpress chances are you just use that auto upload function. That puts all the images in a folder called uploads. 99% of all website owners use these names for all their images. That's not good Image Optimization SEO.

When Google looks at an image, it reads the COMPLETE url to try to figure out what the image is about. So if you have image1.jpg in folder images, it sees this: lotsofclothes.com/images/image1.jpg.

Can you figure out what the image is about? No, I can't either! You want to have different image folders, all named with the key words related to the actual image, for good Image Optimization SEO.

So since it's a clothing store, you want to name your folders the root key words of what you stock, like this:
lotsofclothes.com/shoes/
lotsofclothes.com/dresses/
lotsofclothes.com/pants/

You also can be even more detailed and use this:
lotsofclothes.com/mens-shoes/
lotsofclothes.com/petite-dresses/
lotsofclothes.com/teen-boy-pants/

That really gives Google a good tip as to what the heck that image is about and great Image Optimization SEO. Once you add key words to the image itself, it's so easy for Google to see what it is:

lotsofclothes.com/petite-dresses/girls-pink-flower-dress-1.jpg

Google would be blind to not understand what it is now! If brand names are more important to you, try naming your folders and images like this:

lotsofclothes.com/nike-socks/mens-white-nike-socks-1.jpg

There is all kinds of ways to make your folders and image names practically beg Google to see what it is for great Image Optimization SEO. Using this way to name your folders will get them on the first page of Google image search every time!

Source: SEO blog

Published by Bill Manning

Bill lives in beautiful Orlando, Fl. where he runs his own tourist site. He tells how to save money and give tips and tricks for Disney, Sea World and Universal Studios vacations. He loves riding the theme p...  View profile

  • Name your image folders the root key words
  • Get detailed and name your image folders different key words
Google reads the full URL of an image to try to see what it's about.

2 Comments

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  • Jason Hargreaves1/13/2010

    Excellent article. Linked to it on my new seo board.

  • Jan Corn11/27/2009

    This is very helpful in figuring out how to use keyword named folders effectively for SEO.

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