Sarasota Web Solutions' Guide to Geotagging
Climbing to the top of the first page on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, is a tough task for any business. But there are some things you can do to improve your rank and give you and advantage over your competitors.
One simple thing you can do right now will dramatically improve your chances of ranking better in local search results is making sure all the images on your website are geotagged and have all their important metadata information included.
What are Geotags?
Geotags are important metadata that show the exact coordinates where the image or video was taken. The visitors to your website will not see this information, but search engines do when they’re crawling the web and analyzing your site. Search engines all use their own proprietary algorithms to assign rankings to websites based on a number of different criteria. Their goal is to give their users the best and most accurate results for each search, so they all place a heavy emphasis on accuracy and repetition.
How do I tag images and videos?
If you took a picture with a GPS-enabled device like a smartphone or digital camera, the image will be geotagged by default and will automatically embed GPS coordinates along with the name of the location if available. If you turned that setting off or have an older image, the information may still be stored among the Exchangeable Image File Format (EFIX) data. You can also add data manually or edit data that may be inaccurate or need updating.
Why are Geotags so important?
Geotags are not new, they have been around for more than a decade and most people never noticed. The importance of geotags, however, has evolved from a novelty into a necessity as more and more consumers search for local results on mobile devices. The location information of a photo that matches the physical location of your shop will help increase confidence from the search engines that your site will enhance the results it produces.
Metadata is the core of what search engines use in their algorithms to determine ranking and results. Since most people do not pay very close attention to the metadata of the images on their site, a little bit of work will go a long way towards giving you a substantial advantage over the competitors in local search results.
Another big advantage you gain by making sure your images are properly geotagged is improving the likelihood of them ranking higher when people search by image. This is especially true for local searches. If someone is searching for flower delivery, geotagged images in closer proximity will generally rank higher since they provide more relevant results to the consumer.
What else can I do to improve my ranking?
Geotagging the images and videos on your website is one important aspect of search engine optimization, but there are a few other things you can customize that will help improve your ranking.
Change the Image Title (file name) – Since repetition and consistency are important to search engines, it is important to make sure all your image titles also include the name and location of your business because each instance, or citation, improves your ranking.
Use the Image Alt-Text field to briefly describe the image – This field is often overlooked but provides a valuable source of information to search engines. It also serves a purpose on your website by providing descriptive text when you hover over the image.
Add a Caption to provide even more detail – Captions are small block of text located under, or next to the image that describe the image to the visitor of your site. Search engines also use this field to learn more about the relevance of the image regardless of whether the caption is visible on your site or not.
To learn more about Geotagging and other aspects of SEO that will give you a substantial advantage in your search engine ranking, give Sarasota Web Solutions a call today at (941) 544-5000. Our team of SEO specialists is ready to help you identify deficiencies that may be preventing you from ranking higher and make them work to your advantage instead.