Google Images - Increase Traffic

Search Engine Optimisation is undoubtedly the most effective method of driving traffic to your site - obtaining number one rankings for highly searched keywords can bring huge volumes of traffic to your site. However, it is important not to obsess over SEO and instead spend a proportionate amount of time driving traffic to your site in other methods. In our last article, we looked at 5 Promotion Tips for Targeted Traffic and today we will look at how we can drive traffic through Google Images.

Guide to Google Images

Every single visitor to your website is a potential sale, so you should use every means possible to try and attract targeted visitors to your website. One very effective way to do this is by getting your images included in the Google Images search. As an example of how important Google Images can be, one e-commerce site that we work with ranks number one in the natural search listings for all five of their chosen keywords.

Despite this, they obtain MORE traffic from Google Images than they do from the natural search results on a monthly basis!  This was of a huge surprise to us, but shows the importance of this method of driving traffic. If done correctly, it can bring in a vast amount of targeted traffic and more often than not - it is people looking to buy a specific product.

While it can be done successfully for all types of site, it is most successful for an ecommerce site or an affiliate site which is selling products than customers may be searching for. Setting up your images correctly will help them be found when customers are searching for them.

Check if Google is Indexing your Images

The first step is to see if Google is currently indexing your Images. To do this, go to Google and click on the “images” link at the top. Then enter the following code into the search box:

site:yourdomain.com

This will display all the Image files that Google is currently indexing from your website. If no results appear then your images are not currently being indexed. The most common cause for this problem is a flawed robots.txt file.

For example, I used to have a “Disallow: /wp-content/” line on my robots.txt file, with the purpose of blocking some internal WordPress files from search bots. It worked, but as a result it also blocked all my images that were located in /wp-content/uploads/. The solution was simple: I just added the following line after that one: “Allow: /wp-content/uploads/”.

So if your images are not getting indexed, check your robots.txt file to make sure it is not blocking the access to them.