Search Engine Optimization Tips for Images, or Image SEO ~ Thoughts?

Question: What are your thoughts concerning SEO tips for images?

Answer: Images are very useful for search engine optimization! First and foremost, my biggest SEO Tip for images would be to use the ALT attribute and place SEO-friendly keywords ‘behind’ the images. Google pays a lot of attention to the ALT attribute behind images, so that is one of the biggest SEO tips for images. Second, use the XML sitemap feature and webmaster tools to implement an image sitemap. That isn’t as important as the ALT attribute, but still worth it.

Here are other SEO tips for images –

• Do background images in CSS styles help SEO? – Images in general are very weak in terms of their SEO / keyword impact. For regular images, be sure to use the ALT attribute. I would assume that background images have zero SEO impact because there is no ALT attribute, and they usually appear throughout a website.
• How does image SEO work, SEO for images, XML image site map? – Images are basically invisible to Google. So to get them found, you need to a) use the ALT attribute in your image tags, and b) submit an image map to Google, as part of your XML site map. You can read more about image site maps, at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=178636.
• What are best SEO practices for images? Flickr? – Images are important to SEO, but significantly less important than the HTML tag structure and embedded keywords (keyword heavy content). That said, the most important thing to do is to use the ALT attribute with the IMG tag and embed your target keywords. Make sure that EVERY important image has a keyword-heavy description.