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Category: Image & Video Optimization

Explore how to optimize your website's images and videos for search.

  • echo1


    I manage the Google places page for a SAB (local limousine company). The question is, should I add "taxi" and "airport shuttle service" as categories? I have listed only "limousine" and "car service' for now and I want to play it safe although those 2 are related to limo service. Sometimes people refer to limo service as "taxi service" or they are inquiring about prices for shuttle service to the airport and they end up booking the service quite often. Does Google look to our website to find these words in the content? Google Analytics show lots of people are finding us through those two keywords as well although you cannot find the word “taxi" on our website. The interesting thing is that when searching for "taxi + my zip code" the company shows up 4th on maps results and when searching for "shuttle service + my zip code”, the company shows up 2nd on local results and also 2nd in organic results. Is this enough to make me add these 2 categories? Second question is about the area served, does it make a difference (in rankings) if I choose “Distance from one location"over"List of areas served"? What happens is the red pin would be in a different location. If I choose "Distance from one location" the pin would be right in the center of the city (which I think it shouldn't matter anymore that much since the proximity to the centroid is not a ranking factor anymore). If “list of area” served is selected, (the city name will be chosen) then the pin would be about 5 miles West of the city center. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thank you!

    | echo1
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  • echo1


    Is there a way to see what keywords I rank for in Google Places?

    | echo1
    1
  • AllieMc


    Hi I have been reading so many posts about merging Google Plus + (Places) accounts and the new Google + Business Pages.  I am working with a business who has a verified account in both.  How ( and in fact should we try and merge).  The old Places page has a  review the newly create Business Page does not but is better optimized. Any help would be gratefully received as my head is spinning/  PS based in New Zealand

    | AllieMc
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  • AmberRobinson


    Hi All, We have a client who designs and installs custom closets, garage systems, wall beds, home offices, etc. They have a showroom that displays all this for their potential customers to visit. I have hidden the address for this business but the client has an idea that, since they have this showroom that customers can go to, they should not be considered a SAB. My issue is with this part of Google's quality guidelines "If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations"" This client does occasionally conduct face-to-face business at the location BUT they serve the customers at their locations. Opinions and suggestions greatly appreciated!

    | AmberRobinson
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  • jasonwdexter


    searches "web design Mansfield" and you'll see http://www.inuvate.co.uk/web-design-mansfield/ Why is it outranking the stronger, more powerful websites?

    | jasonwdexter
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  • echo1


    For a SAB (service area business) would it help to have a map of their location on the Homepage?

    | echo1
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  • G2W


    Hi there, One of my clients is a local law firm. I have created, populated and verified a Places page for them, but now I have discovered that they had previously created one for each of their attorneys at that location. According to Google's quality guidelines, this is totally fine. However, I am wondering if I should try to verify each of these accounts within Places to enhance their listing coverage? One thing I've already tried is modifying some of the listing details via Map Maker, but it would be nice to just make edits en masse, I think. Any suggestions?

    | G2W
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  • Davidmez


    Hi, I couldn't figure this out, how do i change image that shows up on the right side for maps results, do i change it in my Google places account ?(which i did and and its a first one)  or in Google plus, i just cant get it? Thanks for help.

    | Davidmez
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  • echo1


    We all now how important citations are, structured and unstructured for local results. Oftentimes, as David Mihm said, they are the factor that could tilt the balance.
    It is also true that the higher the authority of a website the more weight Google puts on a citation. My question is, how far should you go after those unstructured citations, would you get them from everywhere you can if the number and not the quality would be the difference between number 1 and number 2 spot in Google local?

    | echo1
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  • echo1


    I think the question summarizes it pretty well. Did anybody experienced this, to rank for one or multiple keywords in both local and organic search results?

    | echo1
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  • Inturact


    What are some ideas for optimizing for off-page local SEO when you're working with home-based businesses that don't necessarily want to share their physical address, and using a PO box is not an option for major local SEO directories?

    | Inturact
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  • echo1


    Should I be worry that the link below returns that message?  My listing is live and well, it can be accessed from anywhere except from Google places page, under "Respond to reviews
    Owners can post a public response to **reviews **by Google users." Any thoughts?

    | echo1
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  • echo1


    From a local perspective, if the legal name of the business is "Rising Realty, Inc", when you added in your footer should I loose the "Inc" part to be consistent with all the other mentions of the business across the web, which are without "Inc"? Thank you!

    | echo1
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  • BruceMcG


    As per http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo I want to rank with a rich snippet and improve my domain's overall ranking. So I am going to ignore YouTube and use Vimeo Pro (using old embed code). I will also submit a video XML sitemap and implement schema markup. Gotcha. Now let's check this strategy with what SEOmoz is doing. Let's take 5 Steps to Facebook Advertising - Whiteboard Friday it was uploaded onto the SEOmoz blog on 29 March 2013. Then on 4 April 2013 it was uploaded onto YouTube. As at 7 April 2013 (PST) I am not seeing the latest SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday Evolution of the Local Algorithm - Whiteboard Friday posted on YouTube. SEOmoz blog has a person written transcription, YouTube has an automatic transcript. There is a link to the SEOmoz comments below the YouTube Video. Cricky! They've gone all YouTube. Stop the boat. Or should I? My assumption is that SEOmoz is big enough so that it is willing to risk losing a few links to their YouTube webpages. Indeed they delay posting the video on YouTube for a week after it has been posted on the SEOmoz blog. What's more it ensures that there is a very good transcript on their blog. Top that off with comments (and I assume video sitemap and schema) and it is happy it will gain more from the traffic generated from the YouTube community than the potential loss of links to its domain, forgoing potential domain authority increases and resulting traffic. So Roger, I'm a little boat not a SEOmoz battleship cruiser, should I do what you do and wait for a week before I put my videos on YouTube? Or avoid the dangerous currents of YouTube stealing my domain authority and ignore YouTube all together?

    | BruceMcG
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  • AndrewY


    I've got a pretty good handle on the pros / cons of hosting on videos on a free service like YouTube vs. hosting them independently with something like Wistia. But one question I've never heard answered is "Why not host the same video both ways?" Why wouldn't I publish a video to YouTube (to get the exposure and better chance to rank) and then also host the same video independently on my site  with Wistia (to get a second listing in the SERPs, as well as a thumbnail that links to my site)? Is this seen as a spammy practice?  Duplicate content?  Would love to hear your thoughts on this as it's something that seems to potentially be a win-win, but haven't heard it discussed. Thanks!

    | AndrewY
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  • Hospitality-SEO


    3.26.13 Everything I can find on image SEO is relatively dated and some that I do don't explain exactly what should be done. 1. When designing a site it is easier to simply integrate best practices from the get go. So what are the best practices? Alt tags - these are to explain the photo for handicapped individuals but you can naturally weave in a good keyword. Image titles - do these matter? URL of the jpg - should we put in a good keyword here? What about schema? What about Meta tags for the page the pic loads on? What about pinning to Pinterest and what is properly pulled over? What about other social channels and sharing? What am I missing? Who out there has the ultimate guide for optimizing images in 2013? Thank you!

    | Hospitality-SEO
    1
  • Davidmez


    Hello. Im working with beauty salon client, i do rank them for top services, but there a term that i can't rank for, my page it optimized for this keywords (url,h1,h2) i  have this keyword in Google places, as a category, and in description. i have build many citations with this term, BUT still cant rank it. If anyone can help me on that, ill be really appreciated, as i'm still learning this. Thanks You!

    | Davidmez
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  • andystorey


    I am currently putting together a website for my hobby (collecting cycling jerseys) that I can then use to improve my SEO knowledge. I have tried to optimize the image names so that when somebody searches for a particular item, the image is shown in Google Images. For example; if you type in "ADR jersey" in google; it gives the following image; http://cycling-jersey-collection.com/images/150px/2013-02-07-adr-fangio-ioc-mbk-1987-team-retro-jersey-maillot-trikot.jpg Whereas I want it to prioritize this one; http://cycling-jersey-collection.com/images/2013-02-07-adr-fangio-ioc-mbk-1987-team-retro-jersey-maillot-trikot.jpg The smaller image is used on a "Browse" the collection page whereas the bigger one is just used on the single, specific page. Can anybody offer any up-to-date advice? Thanks! Andy

    | andystorey
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  • waynekolenchuk


    Hi Mozzers, Is it possible to do YouTube-specific keyword research? I have a client who sells wine making franchises and wants to produce a video for prospective franchisees. I doubt people are looking for this on YouTube and want some data to support my case so I can push the project in a more meaningful direction.

    | waynekolenchuk
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  • tonyklu


    Hi, I'm trying to rank my clients in top 3 for maps for all categories as of now my client is in top 3 for 2 keywords, what should i focus on to get my client rank in maps results for more categories? Thanks

    | tonyklu
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  • casper434


    To date local SEO seems to be the weak part of my SEO efforts. Are there any good references for local SEO?

    | casper434
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  • MassMedia


    This might be a very simple question, but I'm just trying to make sure I don't make Google think I'm trying to pull a fast one.  For example, my page title would be "Bridal Fashions", but the menu label would be "fashions" to keep the navigation panel simple and streamlined.

    | MassMedia
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  • MBASydney


    Hi we have a client who has about 40 different stores around the country. Most of the stores have their own Google+ Pages or Google Places. We want to take control of all 40 stores from a centralized location. So we can control their Google+ Pages/Google Places to improve them, and keep them uniformed with each other.How/Can can we do this? Does Google provide any way to do this? Thanks, Mark

    | MBASydney
    0
  • h1seo


    We are doing a porject for an Ecommerce site and have implemented rich snippets exactly  like as seen in http://www.homeshop18.com/samsung-galaxy-y-duos-s6102-mobile-phone/mobiles-accessories/mobiles/product:28199013/cid:3027/. However when I use http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets the snippets are not being shown. It was being shown earlier when I implemented it on the first day. Can anyone throw some light?

    | h1seo
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  • martino888


    I've failed to rank a youtube video before , I don't know why.. but do you guys have something that can help me to rank a youtube video to google page one? backlinks? If yes, then what type of backlinks? Just like backlinking articles and websites? thx for the input guys

    | martino888
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  • Davidmez


    Hi, I know how to get in top 3 listings for Google maps, i ranked my client #1 for
    pretty competitive keyword that gets about 2000 local searches a month. My client was there for about 3 months or so, but now she doesn't even rank in top 10, But shes number one after maps listings. So my question is how do you keep that rankings once you ranked #1 for maps? All my pages are highly optimized
    My Google places page 100% competed and  highly optimized
    I use twitter every week to build citations What im i missing? Thanks

    | Davidmez
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  • ocelot


    Hi My Google places listing has vanished from the local search results, and when clicking on the 'see your listing on Google' link from the Google Places dashboard I am getting the message We currently do not support the location What is causing this is it due to another listing with the same address?  I have now deleted this extra listing which is now showing as suspended until I enter the pin which will remove it. But what other steps do I need to take to get the listing back on google places search results?

    | ocelot
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  • mblsolutions


    I am looking for some advice regarding You Tube and removing the adverts that are within the videos when I host them on my website. I 'Googled' the answer and all the information that I found was relevant before the latest You Tube update? Many thanks in advance for your help.

    | mblsolutions
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  • BenGMKT


    Anyone else seeing this? It just changed as of a few hours ago because it wasn't showing up this morning. One of our competitors is now ranking 2 times in the 3 pack and once in the regular SERP for a non branded keyword. "service/product + city." They have different: Names phone numbers - 1 local, 1 -888 addresses it looks like they don't have a rel/301 set up on the home page and they have a www site and non www site set up as 2 different accounts. One of the results is a Google Plus page and one is a Google Places/local page.

    | BenGMKT
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  • unitedairlines


    Does anyone know if metadata stored in images is read by search engines?My company stores images in digital asset management systems and metadata keyword tags are added to the images, so they can easily be found within the system. Since these keywords are stored in the image file, I was wondering if search engines can read them once the image is placed on the website, but I'm not finding any evidence of this in my research.

    | unitedairlines
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  • SoundinTheory


    We are redesigning this site http://www.crystalshop.co.uk/ but not reinstating the ecommerce yet so the primary aim of the site is to increase foot traffic in the shops. The list of shops on the RHS of the homepage is really messy  but is useful. I would like to move these to the footer... is this a bad idea? If this is, is it a bit of a gamble to move it to the bottom of the homepage rather than higher up as it is? We are already featuring a link to the shop finder page but I want to get the locations in as prominent place as possible but it's quite a long list!

    | SoundinTheory
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  • wreevesc


    I'm updating our company portfolio.  All said and done I will have ~300 photos in the gallery on page load that are filtered depending on user clicks.  Because of the nature of our work my main keywords are going to get repeated a lot throughout the file names and alts.  The titles/captions will have wording more appropriate to the user, but I can't avoid a lot of these keyword combos. Do you think I'll take a hit for something like this? Or will it work in my favor? Reeves portfolio-gallery

    | wreevesc
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  • MBASydney


    Hi, Quick question. I have a content page which contains a youtube embedded video. I want to rank that page for a specific keyword phrases on google. I also want to rank the video youtube url aswell for the exact same specific keywords. Does anyone from experience know if this would be considered duplicate content (same video) or work? Same video on both URLs but the video on my site has additional valuable content surrounding the video. Regards, Jerry

    | MBASydney
    1
  • greenhornet77


    Which one should i do? A little confused here.. This would be for small biz contractors/ hvac, painters, etc. trying to rank for Local SEO.

    | greenhornet77
    0
  • ClickIt


    I use getlisted.org as my local listing guideline.  For some of the local listings you can "upgrade" the listing for a price instead of doing just the basic free listing.  I was wondering do people pay for the listing and is it worth it?  Are some of them better than others to get an upgraded listing? Thanks for the help!

    | ClickIt
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  • steelintheair


    What video player and video format is recommended for universal playback on all devices?

    | steelintheair
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  • ClickIt


    When I acquire a new client I have created them an internal Gmail that I use for Google Places and now Google+.  This has always worked. My question is, can I take over a Google Places listing on my email and still do a Google+ for business page and the reviews show up?  Or does it have to be all under the same email? Thanks!

    | ClickIt
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  • echo1


    How important it is to choose a local SEO company based on their location? How can you check their reliability?

    | echo1
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  • SEOSponge


    Has anyone tried building a page in their website top encourage reviews? I found this company and I really like how they are encouraging reviews without soliciting them, clean, simple, instructions are great: http://fortecommercialcleaning.com/reviews We are thinking of putting our own spin on it without scraping content, being original etc. I don't think it breaks any guideline rules. Thoughts?

    | SEOSponge
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  • BedeFahey


    I wanted to get some opinions on an interesting situation for local search. Many doctors and dentists are found in one of two ways online: Their name and title, e.g. Dr. James A. Smith, MD Their practice name, e.g Smith Plastic Surgery, P.C Often sites like Healthgrades are providing data on the doctor him or herself, and the information can be tough to switch out. At the same time, there's a tendancy on the Dr's part to want to be listed as their practice name. Their site is often set up that way. How are you handling this kind of setup? Have you found a way to reliably associate (and format) a practice and doctor's name in a listing, in such a way that doesn't violate Google's quality guidelines? I know the drill for handling a doctor within a hospital, but this is a slightly different situation...

    | BedeFahey
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  • WrightIMC


    We've read reports, heard from colleagues and some of our clients have experienced a drop in impressions starting on February 20th. Going from an average of 500+ impressions to 10-30. Anyone else experiencing this?

    | WrightIMC
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  • greenhornet77


    We just started SEO for a shop that has 3 locations. Oddly 2 are on one road and the other is not. Should we name them differently in Google? Bobs #1 Bobs#2 Bobs #3 Wondering if there is an SEO benefit to that? Also should I set up directory listings for each location? There is not ONE main location they are all equal.

    | greenhornet77
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  • bjalc2011


    Based in the UK, I can see clear differences in search results for terms that Google considers have local intent, based on location. I'm interested in the community's experience of how far in distance local intent reaches. Does it depend on the search?, e.g. If I search for restaurant will it have a different local intent radius to a coffee shop etc.

    | bjalc2011
    0
  • casper434


    Would like to read articles on local SEO that have been recently published in the past few months. Has anyone come across good articles on this topic?

    | casper434
    0
  • MBASydney


    Hi my client has a store which is not showing up on Google search results. E.g. if you looked up store name and store location on Google, all the stores in that particular city show up except one. Also even if you click the: More results near CITY, and State the stores listing still doesn't show up. So for some reason Google has excluded the store from Google search. But if you go to Google Maps directly, and type in the same keyword "STORE NAME CITY" the store is displayed and there. Does anyone know any reason why the store has been excluded from Google search results, but is listed successfully on Google Maps.

    | MBASydney
    0
  • SimpleTexting


    My questions is about duplicate video content. I haven't been able to get a clear understanding from reading the previous threads. We are hosting our videos with Vimeo and embedding into our site. I want to embed them in 2 locations - on our features page with Java (Can be seen here http://simpletexting.com/features/). I also want to embed them in our resource section so that we can link to them directly. I am wondering what the best way to do this for SEO and whether there is a chance that google will penalize us for duplicate content? If leave out the videos on the features page in the XML sitemap, does that address the problem? There are 2 threads I saw on the topic and they have somewhat conflicting opinion from the same person. http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-video-content-question --Duplicate video on the same site is not a problem http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-video-onsite-how-do-you-treat-this-in-sitemap -- Duplicate videos are a problem as google can recognize them as such due to audio wave patterns, video length etc. Thanks

    | SimpleTexting
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  • bronxpad


    I am wondering how important it is to have a site listed in the Yahoo Directory? My site is a local real estate site that is on the lower part of page 1 for most of my main keywords. The top of page 1 is dominated by the usual brands. How would having a link from Yahoo Directory benefit me?mthanks all.

    | bronxpad
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  • WebMO


    I have a Google Places listing that has the category set to 'Garage Door Supplier', yet if you do a search in Maps on this same phrase and zoom into the area of the map where the business is located, it doesn't get flagged as a garage door supplier. If you just search on the business name, is does get flagged in the right location. I spoke with Google (yeah, an actual human) and they were baffled. The only suggestion they had was to try adding a few more categories to see if maybe that would force an update. Has anyone ran into this, and if so, did you find a fix?

    | WebMO
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  • EndeR-


    Hello, if you are good at SEO and want to launch businesses thanks to your ability to rank high on local searches, what are some good ideas? I'm more interested in the market sizes than the difficulties to rank. Another important factor is the ease to do the actual business. Because of that, I'm looking for ideas like "appartment renting San Diego" because you can create a classifieds ads website where people pay for their listings. Another good idea is "marriage photographer New York" because if you have the orders you just need to hire a few free lance photgrapher. "car dealearship London" wouldn't work on the other hand because opening a car dealerhip is too costly. Thanks a lot!

    | EndeR-
    0
  • AudigyGroupDigital


    Not sure how to search for exactly the answer I'm looking for, because frankly my question (at least to me) is hard to describe. I will try my best, though! So I have a client who has an audiology business. They are located in Denver, CO. For search, we have them listed in the PLACES portion of the local search results (with the map, phone, address, etc). We saw this as a pretty big win, because its a fairly competitive market. HOWEVER, the client feels like those listings aren't as clicked on, or aren't as prominent as say, a regular organic listing that would have a page title, and description. I am assuming that isn't correct, that if I could only have 1 listing I'd want the PLACES one, but it occurred to me that this assumption isn't really based on any data I have personally read. So my question is two-fold. 1a. Is my assumption about being in PLACES accurate, that that listing is more desirable (even if I could pick which one to get, which i don't think is realistic) and 1b. Has anyone seen or have data that backs up my assertion one way or another. Would love your thoughts! William Smith @williamsmith

    | AudigyGroupDigital
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