Optimize Photo Galleries

How to Optimize Photo Galleries for Google Search

Ever wonder how to get your photo galleries ranking in Google search? Try these optimization tips for photo gallery pages.

Online magazines are known for having high-quality images. It’s one of the reasons why publishers spend so much time perfecting the design of their magazine websites. Photo galleries are one of the most popular sections of most digital publishers’ websites.

Understanding the importance of having well-designed photo galleries, many online magazine publishers will spend countless hours meticulously planning how their gallery pages will look and function. Details like image size, resolution, layout, and even font sizes on captions are all discussed. Meanwhile, one very important aspect of building a photo gallery page often goes overlooked. 

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is rarely considered when publishers design the photo gallery pages on their websites. That’s a mistake, and it’s something we’re ready to fix.

How to Optimize a Photo Gallery for Search

Placing images in a photo gallery helps online publishers show up in search results for similar images, which can lead to a boost in website visitors. That’s just one of the reasons why photo galleries should always be optimized for Google search. 

Google uses image recognition technology to analyze the images in a publisher’s galleries. Despite this technology’s sophistication, it’s still much harder to recognize and index images than it is to interpret text. It takes much longer for Google’s algorithms to classify and index images than it does for written content. However, with the right optimization techniques, it’s not too difficult to get photo gallery pages ranking on the first page of Google search results.

If you want your photo galleries to rank well in Google search, you need to add more captions. 

Consider the reason why most recipe websites include text-heavy stories before each recipe and list of ingredients. It’s not for the reader’s benefit. It has to do with SEO. This is a similar concept to what we’re talking about with photo galleries. Photo galleries that have descriptive headings and captions will rank ahead of galleries that exclusively feature images alone.

When a photo gallery is developed using the latest best practices for website optimization, including written captions for individual images and descriptions of what’s included on each photo gallery page, that will lead to an improvement in Google ranking.

Image Optimization for SEO

Everything we’ve discussed above has to do with online photo galleries. What about the photos inside of those galleries? What can publishers do to increase the chances of those photos appearing in Google image search results? 

A few strategies to remember for photo optimization:

  • Always optimize file names to include relevant keywords
  • Write concise, accurate descriptions of the images in your galleries
  • Include descriptive alt text in image files
  • Choose the JPEG file format for larger photos
  • Use responsive images when possible
  • Ensure images are appropriately sized and optimized for fast page loading times

Generic file names like DSC4536.jpg can drag down your SEO. Slow page load times are a big problem, as well. Huge images that aren’t properly optimized make pages load more slowly, and in some cases this has led to significant drops in search results.

Dedicated photo galleries enhance the user experience by making it easier for visitors to browse your website. Following these tips for image optimization will ensure that your photo galleries rank for relevant keywords, whether you’re an online magazine publisher, a blogger, or the editor of a local news website.

Optimizing photo galleries is just one part of a broader approach to mobile website optimization. For more information on what it takes to get your publication ranking on the first page of Google search results, connect with a member of Web Publisher PRO’s dedicated team of experts.