As the SEO Specialist at Tillison Consulting, I often get asked about new avenues businesses can explore to aid their SEO. Flickr is the latest avenue to be added to my suggested list.
Flickr can be used for SEO purposes by including images in your SEO plan. However, as with all SEO endeavours it has to be done in a natural way in order to get the benefit from it.
How It Works
Like Pinterest, Flickr is an image-based platform where you can share and search images. However, the way you upload images and link them differs from Pinterest as Flickr has much stricter controls on what and how you upload.
In order to use Flickr, you will need the images saved as files on your PC/Laptop ready to upload. You cannot simply add a photo using a button as you do with Pinterest.
Flickr in SEO Terms
Here are some steps to take when adding photos to Flick for SEO purposes:
- Make sure that you name all of your photos. You may not believe me but the search engines do actually ready the file names to determine the keyword relevance.
- Create a title for your image, ideally using a primary keyword.
- Add a description to each photo and also add a link as well. Flickr sets the links to ‘no follow’ but adding the link is still beneficial for SEO purposes.
- Make sure to use tags for your photos. These tags add weight to your photos. There isn’t a strict limit to how many you can use, however, I would normally stick to a maximum of 6 tags.
- Maximise the exposure of the work you are doing on Flickr by having a link on your website to your Flickr account. You want more and more people to engage with your social accounts including Flickr so make sure people know where to find you.
Words of advice:
The most important thing to remember is to use the account naturally and not just for SEO purposes. This goes for all avenues in your SEO plan. By behaving naturally you’ll get genuine people following your account and sharing your photos. This interaction has a massive impact on your SEO, think of it as a society doing some of the work for you.
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