Photos and Images For More Traffic

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Ranked #357 in Squidoo Tips, #64,323 overall

The Benefits Of A Hippo Image

I've been into blogging for a couple of years now and, almost by accident, found out about the power of images and photos on blogs - and I suspect on Squidoo lenses as well. For example:

(1) They can bring you lots of traffic. As you will see read later, on one of my blogs photos brought me over 435,000 referrals from search engines in one year, with a blog starting from blank.

(2) They help illustrate any point or subject you are writing about .

(3) They look nice! They brighten up a page and break up large chunks of text and catch the reader's eye.

(4) They can be used as links.

(5) They can make you money.

I will try to encapsulate these points on this lens as the weeks tick by.

The message is though - think images! And then you too can become a contented hippo.

NOTE: The images and photos used on this blog (other than the Elvis photo) are all royalty free pictures and may be used anywhere else and altered as required. A link to this lens would be appreciated if copied.

Stats Are Enough To Make A Hippo Yawn 

I know stats make hippos yawn but ....

hippo

Search engine referralsFirstly, to show that images and photos can bring referrals, from the search engines, here are a few stats from one of my blogs.

The image on the right is from my blog tracker and as you can see the top search engine referrer is Google Images with 435,252 referrals - and this was in just one year starting the blog from scratch.

When blogging I virtually always use some sort of image within a post, even if it's only a line drawing or a cartoon style figure. This makes the post look more interesting than it probably is and brings colour to otherwise drab blocks of text.

Getting sidetracked a little I always think that text should be broken up into small paragraphs and not thumping great big one. Lots of people glaze over if they see a mass of text with no breaks.

Now that I've shown that images can bring traffic I'll move on to a couple of things I do to get my images on the search engines.

I'm not saying that the following is exactly right but it works for me - so moving on ....

Talk About A Hippo Image 

The following is what I try to do with my images and photos, though it's not always possible depending on where you host your pics. There are 4 steps but I believe that it is number 3 that is by far the most important.

Hippo Traffic Talk

(1) The image should have a proper name, not something like 1003.jpg. It needs to say what the photo is all about - obviously with as few words as possible. In my example of the photo above I've titled the photo 'hippos'.

(2) I understand that it is search engine friendly to state the size of the photo. In the hippo's case 374 x 570. Some bloggers disagree with this, but I'm writing about what I try to do.

Looks like this:
height="374" width ="570"

(3) Alt should be used for your keywords. In my case I'm using 'Hippo Traffic Talk'.

Looks like this:
alt="Hippo Traffic Talk"

In case you are not sure, alt creates the words seen when you hover over an image on Internet Explorer. It was originally used as an alternative to the image in case the photo couldn't be seen.

(4) Don't spam. By this I mean don't use too many keywords in your photo title or alt. This also applies to text - use keywords but do not over use them. It makes search engine's very cross if you do!

That's about it, nothing very clever, but it can work. You might think differently. All I can add is that the above works for me.

Squidoo Text Module Photos 

Though the Squidoo Text Module 'People like photos' option is an easy way to add photos it has a draw back.

The problem is that the photos won't get listed on the search engines as items in their own right. As there is no 'alt' photo description the robots, or whatever, won't be able to tell what the photos are all about.

If you want to try and get referrals from the search engines for photos it is probably best to host them somewhere else and then transfer them to the modules yourself.

This is quite easy to do as the hosts normally provide the necessary HTML. If the photos are too big simply alter width="xxx" and height="xxx" where xxx is a smaller amount.

A few free photo hosts: Flickr, Photobucket, ImageShack. There are, however, dozens more.

Use Hippo Or Even Elvis As a Link 

Hippo Links

Elvis PresleyI realised, a couple of months after I had started blogging, that images, photos and the like can actually earn you money if you use these as links.

When I was going through some blog stats I noticed that quite a few readers click on images even though there was no real reason for them to do this.

I guess some may click on the images to see it a larger size or maybe just out of curiosity. Whatever the reason the thing is that a few will click.

Following this realisation I started using some of my images as links, preferably so that they went to something relative to the picture but also to something that might make me money.

Purely as an example the Elvis photo links to my Elvis Presley The Early Years lens.

I don't do this with every image as I think this would be overdoing it. If there's a good reason why someone might want to see the picture, perhaps as a bigger size, I leave things how they are. I wouldn't make thumbnails links, for example, because readers would expect to see a larger image if they clicked.

I think, however, making an image a link is acceptable in the circumstances I have suggested. It's a matter of balance and not overdoing it - as are a lot of things in life - unfortunately!

Public Domain Photos & Copyright 

There are lots of photos about which can be used on blogs, websites and lenses. These are normally decribed as being in the Public Domain.

Copyright and Public Domain laws are complicated and vary from country to country. For that reason, instead of giving an explanation, I'll refer you elsewhere for a more detailed analysis.

First go to Wikipedia Public Domain. From here move to their Public Domain image resources.

At Wikipedia Commons they have 'a database of 3,786,741 freely usable media files.'

Now as to what 'freely usable' actually means try the explanation here.

For copyright in general, with lots of links to other places, Wikipedia's Copyright explanation may be useful.

Plug Your Lens Or Blog With A Free Ad 

40 Free Ways To Get More Traffic 

Of course using images and photos, to get more traffic, is just one way out of many.

Mikes Money Making MissionI have written a post 40 Ways To Get Free Traffic on my blog.

Though the post was initially written for bloggers there are many similarities to Squidoo lenses. I think it's really about trying different things to see what works and what doesn't. The important thing is to actually do something. Traffic rarely rolls up without encouragement.

The 40 ways I have suggested in my post are all ones that I have tried myself.

Animal Photos 

These photos are royalty free and may be copied as wished - a link back to this lens would be appreciated.

curated content from Flickr

Photos of Flowers 

Daffodils
I've started a year long project of photos of flowers in my garden for each month. I started this in April 2009. If you have the time please go to :A year In My Cornish Garden - Thanks.

Make Money With Your Photos 

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