Targeting image search traffic

Now, young grasshoper, that you know how to get image search traffic to your site, you should focus on a worthier goal:

Targeted image traffic

I mentioned before, that I got one of my blogs onto the first image SERP for the term coffee.

Q: Did it help much?
A: Not really.

Keep in mind to get targeted image searches:

Optimize all your images that you want to appear in the image search and only those.

DON’Ts

• DON’T Give attributes to navigation images
  • Maybe even go as far as to name them something like navi_01.jpg, or menu_lower.gif
• DON’T give attributes / names to images NOT related to your keywords
  • If you have a cat picture on your ringtone page, name it pic01 .jpg, skip the title and alt tag

DO’s

• DO Give  EXTRA LOVING to  pictures that  are  related to your  niche
• DO Get high quality pictures, buy them if necessary!
• DO Don’t just call it smartphone.jpg, call it palm-treo-680.jpg
• DO Move some text describing the image into the same TD as the image (thanks, Eli)
• DO Don’t forget alt tags and title text
• DO Think about moving your affiliate link into a lightbox.

Optimizing image search traffic

This article has moved with the rest to

 http://blindapeseo.com/seo/targeting-image-search-traffic

How to multiply your adspace using lightbox

Description
Also known as “Project D” for the 47 day challenge, this is a small site about moleskines.

It is as good an example of a niche site as it gets.
The topic is the “moleskines” brand of notebooks, it is handcoded, took about 2 hours including content and is monetized via amazon.

One of the main reasons this works is the domain name.
All traffic is pure organic search results. I’ve done no more than link to it on some of my sites.
It brings in about 2 bucks a month and some more in Christmas season.
Last year it made about 50$ profit after subtracting hosting costs.

For those interested in ROI, it rings in at 400%.

Proven it’s worth, I want to give this little site some love and multiply its adspace.

Multiply your adspace times X using lightbox
Clicking on one of the dormant links in the wickedfire header will prompt a box to pop up, adding a dark layer on the site and shopwing a picture. Many people mistake this for a flash animation at first, but it is a small JavaScript called Lightbox.
The interesting part of lightbox is the description you can enter for the image. Turns out, you can enter HTML code to format your description.
This gives us the opportunity to enter the HTML needed for advertising.

Caution!
Javascript won’t work. So you’re out of luck with adsense, but any static HTML is fine.

For those interested in Javascript, flash, etc.. for something like lightbox, check out thickbox.

So what will I be doing?
Basically, collect a few nice moleskine pictures to display in my lightboxes. Add amazon to every lightbox. For 10 pictures, I can display 10 more ads.

Other Benefits
Lightbox has several benefits that should work well for advertising:

• It darkens the rest of the site, making the user focus on the image (and adspace)
• It does not interfere with the layout
• The user stays on the page while looking at the pretty picture
• The user is looking at something he’s interested in, you can display your ad right beside it

Setting it up
Download lightbox http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/
Read the Tutorials. (Really easy, it is just one page)
The script weighs in at about 5K, making it a lightweight addition to your site.

So I set this up for my product page here:
Collected an image of a lined moleskine, added a button “view details” which prompts the lightbox.
Set up the amazon link in the lightbox, using the small colorcoded moleskine icon.

How to enter the HTML code?
Well, saying “any html will work” is not quite right. You need to strip and/or escape some characters from your code to prevent it from breaking the Javascript surrounding it.

These are the less than sign < and quotation marks “

Just replace them with < and single quotes, respectively.
You could also just leave out the quotation marks, but I find readability is better using single quotes.

So your amazon code looking like this:

<a href=http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0009WOZBE? ie=UTF8&tag=XXXYZ-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1638&creative=6742&creativeASIN=B0009WOZBE>Drei Amen für den Satan</a><img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.de/e/ir?t=XXXYZ-21&l=as2&o=3&a=B0009WOZBE” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;”>

Becomes this:
<a href=”images/image-1.jpg” rel=”lightbox” title=”<a href=’http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0009WOZBE? ie=UTF8&tag=XXXYZ-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1638&creative=6742&creativeASIN=B0009WOZBE’>Drei Amen für den Satan</a><img src=’http://www.assoc-amazon.de/e/ir?t=XXXYZ-21&l=as2&o=3&a=B0009WOZBE width=’1′ height=’1′ border=’0′ style=’border:none !important; margin:0px !important;’>“><img src=”images/thumb-1.jpg” width=”100″ height=”40″/>
</a>

Rinse and repeat.

Voila, you’ve got adspace times images now.

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Review of Earners Blog

So I am writing a review for Earners Blog.

First off, I’ll have to admit that I am
doing this because of the contest you’ll find on the site here.

If you want to enter the contest as well,
feel free to join.

Putting the contest aside, I have been
reading earners for quite some time now and always find it a good and
refreshing read.

The topics covered in earners blog are
nothing new. A mix of industry news, blackhat, social marketing, SEO knowledge,
blog marketing etc..

However, the ideas presented on the site often
take a new twist on the affiliate marketing and SEO game. And new ideas are
what makes me want to read a blog. As for this, earners blog is up to par with
Eli’s bluehatseo for me, although the tone is a bit more more mellow.

Even when the topic of the day is nothing
new, earners takes its time to explain the concepts behind the idea, thus making
it a good read for noobs and intermediate marketers as well. Here the mellow
tone helps a lot. This has helped this sorry ape more times than I’d like to
admit.

Those following the path of the ape will
know that general craziness is what I am after. Although not nearly often
enough, this craving gets satisfied frequently while reading earners.

All in all, earners is a blog I’d recommend
for any “must read” list for affiliate marketing, presenting a good
mix of old and new ideas.

Read it and enjoy.

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