A Rose by Any Other Name

Go to any page on the web and pick an image; any image will do. Check its properties, and more than likely it is named something completely meaningless to you. If so, chances are it is meaningless to the search engines as well. When you are beginning to code and reference the images on a page, it’s important to name them accordingly. Far too often web designers name images using abbreviations, numbers or default identifiers. But these are great opportunities to optimize a site without ever having to think about usability, wording or appearance.

If you did in fact do what I asked and right-clicked on an image to find out what it was called, you would be one of the very few to ever do so on that image – aside from the search engine spiders. And that’s exactly why you should label your images with a name that can only help your SEO efforts.

Let’s say I own a company that sells car insurance. Let's also say that my friend Cameron and I were recently leaving the parking lot of a Target when she backed into a parked car, and I happened to have my camera. The shot was taken so expertly that I decided to use it as motivation for visitors to my site to purchase my insurance. Do I name it camerondoesthenoblethingandfindstheownerofthecar_gif? No. Who is Cameron and what does she have to do with my product? I should use the keywords I am optimizing for to name the image (all images) on my site.