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All posts by David Sewell
Optimising Bees for Google Image Search using CSS to Show Part of the Image
Google has changed the way image search results are presented. This is having a major impact on traffic driven to sites from image search results.
With Google trying to keep visitors away from your site, what can be done ?
This post shows one way to make the most of the space Google now gives an image.
The idea is to modify the images on your site so that:
- enlarge the image to include a call to action in the border
- then use CSS to show only part of the image on the site
When Google crawls the image, it will take the entire image including the border and calls to action within.
This will enable both brand impressions and marketing messages to be shown to people using Google image search, so even if you can’t get the visit, you can at least claim some mind share.
[An alternative, is simply to add a ‘watermark’ to all of your images, however that doesn’t look so good on your site.]
The following example using an out of focus bee settling on a lavender plant, shows how to use CSS to control the visible area of the photo.
The CSS used for the following image ensures that only part of the image is visible on page:
img.wp-image-363 {
position:absolute !important;
clip:rect(0px,480px,390px,0px);
}
The html code for the image itself:
<img class="size-full wp-image-363" title="Bees on lavender" src="http://www.seoeditors.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/bees-on-lavender-google-image-resize-css.png" alt="" >
Click on the image above to see the full size photo of the bees on the lavender, including the additional border.
The border is transparent to maximize the appearance of the CTA within Google image results.
If you try searching in Google for this image, you should see the image complete with calls to action.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&tbo=d&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=bees+on+lavender+css+resize
Give it a go and let me know what you think about this technique.
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Data Highlighter in Google Webmaster Tools
A new tool for helping site owners with structured markup for events has appeared recently in Google Webmaster Tools.
The interface for this new tool called the ‘Data Highlighter’ is shown below:
At the moment the tool is restricted to Events markup, and the video shows you how to set about Highlighting.
On selecting the ‘Start Highlighting’ option, you get the following screen:
All you need to do is enter the URL of the page containing events to start with. This looks to be the start of a move by Google to make decorating html and adding schema somewhat easier than relying on development cycles. As we move into 2013, the data highlighter tool is likely to become much more comprehensive.