The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
May 2009, Volume 8, Issue 5

Flickr & Keywords: 4 Tips to Maximize Your Efforts

By Maya Champaneri,Search Marketing Specialist, iProspect

Today's search results include a variety of digital assets, including images. Considering that — along with the increased number of users looking for a variety of multimedia — search marketers need to leverage sites like Flickr to broaden their reach.

A quick snapshot
Flickr is a social image and video hosting/sharing site and online community platform that Yahoo! acquired in March of 2005. Its members are interested in the Art of photography, and have a preference for images that are professional looking, high quality, and demonstrate practical application. It works much like Picasa or Shutterfly, but its distinct SEO advantages, global footprint, and social aspects make it much more valuable to online marketers and brand managers.

Understanding its value
Images on Flickr rank well in the search engines — especially Yahoo! — which makes your brand more visible. Better search engine visibility combined with built–in Flickr functionality can ultimately lead to highly–qualified traffic gains. In addition, you may also get extra traffic from links that bloggers and publishers place on their sites to give you credit for using one of your photos (if you allow it). Lastly, Flickr is a great resource to boost your reputation management efforts as you can use it to interact with your audience through being active in the community and responding to user comments.

Getting started
Once you're ready to tap into Flickr, it's only a matter of setting up an account, uploading photos, and being a part of the community! You'll want to join groups that relate to your images or brand, and submit appropriate photos to them. If you can't find relevant groups, create some and invite other users who would likely join.

But before you dive–in, realize that keywords play an important role in Flickr. Below are a few basic tactics to help you maximize your efforts by leveraging keywords:

Keyword selection: For each image, you need to determine: what it conveys, what terms searchers are likely to use to find your image, and what keywords have a high search volume. Then select a primary keyword and a few secondary keywords.

Name the image file: Don't use a generic number string to name your file as the search engines actually do read file names to determine search query relevancy. Instead, use the primary keyword phrase in the file name, separating words with hyphens.

Use Tags: Tags help Flickr users find images. Given that, use as many keywords as necessary to get the job done, but keep them relevant. Also be sure to include branded keywords and separate each tag with quotes.

Describe the image: Briefly describe your image using primary and secondary keywords. Include a link, but don't keyword stuff the page or enter more than two links in the description field.

By developing strategies that are multi–faceted in their approach — and incorporating image sharing sites like Flickr — marketers can broaden their reach, gain brand exposure, traffic, and higher rankings. Smart marketers who put in a little effort into a keyword strategy in the beginning of their campaign will reap the rewards of more visibility in the online space.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: May 2009, Volume 8, Issue 5

Flickr & Keywords: 4 Tips to Maximize Your Efforts

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
May 2009, Volume 8, Issue 5