Flickr hosts more than 50 billion images. Instagram and Pinterest followers have exploded to millions in past few years.  It is certain that image hosting and social media websites have met with stupendous success thereby accentuating the interest in the area of image optimization for both search and social media marketing.

Sometime back, images just added flavour to the content and extended the reach of marketing endeavours through image specific searches. Now-a-days, they are a content piece themselves. So here’s what best you can do to create, gather, share and technically optimize images.

Use keywords that reflect what’s shown in the image in your article or surrounding text like “caption” of the image. This is what we refer to as focused Keyword Usage.  It’s even better to use keywords as the File Name. It kind of guides the search engines to locate the most appropriate image when searches are made using keywords.

Yet important is doing the right Image Linking. Also, when adding alt text, do not stuff long-tail keywords to dilute the significance of keywords. Alt attribute is helpful for search engines especially in situations where images are not shown in a browser.

If you are having difficulty making your images search engine ready, you can add image specific tags to a sitemap.

After putting in that much effort in making search-engine friendly images, it’s time that you share them. Think beyond Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Some of the best websites for photo-sharing are Flickr, Photobucket, Pinterest, Picassa, Instagram, TwitPic.

Use images that are inspiring, relevant and stick to standard formats (.jpg, .gif) as these are easily displayed on all devices and you’ll avoid any hindrances to sharing/viewing.

For great user-experience, use high quality photos with high relevancy and use web analytics to see what kind of images translate to more pageviews and traffic.

 User generated content is another important avenue that you should explore to gain access to images. Run a contest encouraging potential clients, or your brand advocates to share an image for an event or as a promotion. These images (user-generated) can provide content for your site, inspire sharing and get you links.