Images Filenames and SEO
Image filenames matter for outfitter rankings, they are a component of SEO. When it comes to SEO, everything matters. But not everything matters the same. To be 100% upfront about this current topic, image filenames are not the top of the heap for gaining search engine rankings, but they do count. In an earlier article, Top 5 Tips to Optimize Images for SEO we covered some of the ways to do this. In this article we are going to deal specifically with image filenames.
For as long as we have been working with hunting outfitters and fishing lodges, we have seen our customers consistently ignore the value of image filenames. This is merely due to not knowing better and/or not knowing how. The reality is that image file management, including naming of your images, is not easy. But, on the difficulty scale, it is relatively low. It just takes time to do it right, in an organized way.
Image file names that have been properly named can serve you in several ways. The first is the potential SEO value of these images. An image with a filename of "whitetail-trophy-2024.jpg" has a much higher likelihood of showing up in a search, or an image search, than the generic filename the camera might give it. But more importantly, the "whitetail-trophy" portion of that file name likely has some relevance to the webpage it will be found on, helping Google to understand what your page is about and helping Google suggest this page in search results.
Dealing with 1000's of Images
Check out the image galleries of any outfitter or fishing lodge. Usually you will find 1000's of images. From trophy pics to trail cams, to scenery, to lodging and more. Often these are "keepers" after culling through many more 1000's of images. Think about a big game outfitter, with dozens of trail cams, each with dozens of images, every day. Think about the fishing lodge, with a handful boats and guides setting out every day and the boat load of images they come back with, everyday. Now add to that the images, and videos, that your clients take and share with you. Free digital images, from a variety of devices and locations is wonderful, until you have to manage them, especially some snap-happy guides or clients who take 10 images of each fish.
Regardless of where they come from, all these images need to be given at least an initial first look to pull out the keeper images. Whether you do this in batch mode, with a few days to a week of images, or on the fly, it takes time. But it's worth it. First of all it's worth it as hunters and anglers are very visual in their information search. They are seeking experiences, and visual media are very influential in creating the "I want to do that" moments. I'm not going to suggest to you how you gather, sort, organize your images, just that you come up with a method that works for you. What I would suggest is that you end up with folders of images that represent images of similar types. For examples, the folders of "northern pike", "walleye", "grayling", "shore lunch", "camp/lodge", and "scenery" might be well suited to a northern fishing lodge. The time spent getting this level of organization is important in the next step.
This collection, or collection of folders, likely has images with file names like "IMG8562.JPG" and "IMG8563.JPG" and many more similar names, all meaningless, without looking at each image.
Bulk Renaming Your Images
This is very important, before you upload your images to your website, it's time to add some value to your images by renaming. Fortunately you do not need to handle each and every file and retype the name. There is an image editing software called PhotoScape that has a bulk renaming feature. I'm not going to do a "How to use PhotoScape" article here but we do highly recommend it. If you have a favorite image editing software with bulk renaming, feel free to use it.
The reason we recommended you organize your images into folders of images, is that you can take advantage of the efficiency of bulk renaming in PhotoScape. If you have 225 images in your "Walleye" folder, you can load them all into the tool and rename them all, in about 2 minutes. No need to individually edit each file name.
Also Rename Your Logo Image
While on the topic of image renaming, you should also give your logo file a relevant filename. That is, relevant to the primary SEO theme of your website. Don't just fall into using the logo image as it was provided to you by the artist. In this case, it is probably named something like "your-company-name-color-vector-file.png". While that name makes perfect sense to a graphic designer, you will get more SEO mileage out of the filename if it is named "your-primary-offering-your-company-name.png". If you are a Saskatchewan Whitetail Outfitter, I would suggests something like "saskatchewan-whitetail-hunts-ONH.png". Your logo file is often one of the first pieces of content that a search engine encounters on your home page, a very important piece of your most important online real estate. Make it relevant. to what your future clients are going to search for, this will help them find you, over someone else.
Naming Conventions
The key things to think about when considering what to name your images are relevance, uniqueness, and variety. Fortunately this can all be done at the some time. Take about 1/3 of your images in your "Walleye" folder, from 2024, and load them in as bulk images. For the renaming, the various software will typically allow you to keep the same name (not advised) or to add a set of text and numbers to the images. It is recommended that you separate any words with hyphens, not underscores. Hyphens are word separators. For variety purposes, we are going to generate 3 differently named batches of images. The first 1/3 could be "walleye-fishing-2024-initials-index.jpg" where initials are the initials of your fishing lodge and index is for the sequence of images. Then the another batch as "walleye-fishing-summer-2024-initials-index.jpg" and the last batch as "walleye-fishing-initials-2024-index.jpg". Note that when batch naming, you will need to use the index number to ensure you have unique filenames. The editing software will have setting that allow you to do this. Do the same with all your other folders/species/topics. You can swap around the words a bit as well. It not essential that the sequence of the words appear in and sentence-like format. If you have images of specific customers that are worth of individual naming effort, go to the newly renamed files and manually rename them. Keep in mind that the time you spend up front to rename your images means that you will not have to rename images after they have already been put in use, as we will discuss next.
Renaming Your Existing Images
Now let's talk about the dreaded task of working with images that already in use on your website, with the default camera names like "IMG8562.JPG" and "IMG8563.JPG". Yes, this is a scenario we have seen dozens of times. If you are using WordPress for your website, then your task is a little bit less daunting, but still the cleanup is going to be file-by-file. After you have had to do this a few times, you will realize the value in taking the time up front to rename your images before they go into use.
For WordPress users, we recommend using the plugin Phoenix Media Rename. It will help you rename a media file, such as an image file, and all instances of that file will be updated. So if you happen to use the file on your home page, in your bear hunting page, and in your image gallery page, fixing it once will fix all three. However, as we mentioned, it is a file by file approach. One other advantage to this plugin tool is that you can also update the title and alt attributes of the image file at the same time, the value of which we have discussed in Image alt text and Image Title Attributes.
For other non-WordPress CMS systems, there may be image/media renaming tools out there. We suggest you check the support forums for the most recommended.
For custom coded sites, we feel for you, we really do. The task is not easy and it extremely mundane. The difficulty in this scenario is that you can not just change an image name and be done. You need to rename the image, then upload the image, then update all the references to the image. A sitewide search and replace certainly helps. Again, I will place the emphasis on the best way to avoid massive manual renaming is by taking the time up front to organize and rename your images, before they are ever put to use.
If you have any questions?
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