A Post About Image Posts ;o)

Maybe something like....

what I did on my summer vacation... actually telling us what you did on your summer vacation.. with words and pictures.

Not a thread suggestion, but maybe something not everybody knows:

In the picture code, change alt and title to something more descriptive (e.g. your name and the title of the picture). Now this text is shown, when you hover over the image. Here you can also change the size.

Colin Utz
www.colinutzphotography.com

That is an excellent suggestion... made many times, but most do not bother.. and it is something that Google will find and index.....

For the uninitiated, here is what Colin is talking about.....



When you copy the link for your image and paste it into a post it will look similar to the above.... the area highlighted in yellow is where you will change what is between the single quotes after the alt= and the title=. Do it when ever you post images to the discussion area and Google will index it and give you more expose... don't do it and Google will NOT see it.

I've yet to figure out the alt tags and such (motivation on my part mostly), but recall Abbie's post concerning having words along with images:

"...ALL image threads must now have discussions attached. You must be discussing your images. This will help you get the images noticed anyway so will be helping you. If you do not want to talk about your image then nobody else will see it as Google is blind. It doesn't see your images, it only reads your words and THEY are what it shares..."

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2654084

Greg... see the post above yours. where you see alt='Art Prints' change that to anything else that will help customers find your image in a google search.

it can be a long description... just make sure the beginning ' and the ending ' are still there.

the same goes for the title='Art Prints' change Art Prints.... to anything that will help your customers find you. It needn't make sense... it can just be keywords that relate to your art piece.

Here's an interesting article about the difference between the ALT and TITLE attributes and their effect on search engine visibility...

http://www.wpromote.com/blog/seo/image-alt-vs-title-using-alt-title-attributes-in-image-tags

- Duane Miller
duanemillerphotography.com

Thanks for that Duane... makes just a bit clearer....

don't just list a bunch of tags.. use actual descriptions.. and mainly in the alt= attribute. ;O)

I think I also remember that a 10 word maximum was a good idea and that some small words (presumably like conjunctions and articles) do not "count" in this total. I always put the same thing in the alt and title because I thought most search engines looked at one or the other. I also do not repeat the title though I may include some of the words that are in the title. That is because I thought I read that you shouldn't just repeat it. But I really don't get any of this, even after reading that article.

tHANK you Bob, et al.............

Nikolyn... Google sends out what it call bots... as in ro-bots or spiders to crawl around the world wide WEB...

These bots and spiders gather information from web pages and creates indexes to these bits of text to be used to provide you with web pages that match your search request.

Generally you name your images with descriptive file names and Googgle will read those and index it for searches..
But let's say you have an image of a city street.. and name you image "city-street.jpg" well that is all the information that Google would be able to gather about your image... but your image has in it taxi cabs, street performers, sculpture, pedestrians, it may be raining or windy, night or day... etc

all of those things you can put into the alt= attribute and Google will read and index those descriptive descriptions. So if someone is searching for an image of a city street with taxi cabs in the rain... well guess whose image will be closer to the top?

Great article, Duane. Clarified a lot for me. I'll be watching this discussion as it seems quite worthwhile.

Interesting idea, creating threads that are designed to help search engines find our work.

Bob, why don't you start a thread, create a few basic rules for the text that each artist has to post with the image -- and maybe limiting the number of images and/or what category of art each artist can post so it doesn't get ridiculously long -- and see how that goes? If it gets out of control, you can always close it, and try again with a different set of rules.

I doubt that something like that would get closed as an "image dump" thread.

Many artists are great with visuals but very uncomfortable with words. Because of that, I'm against the whole 'must have words to post images' plan -- I think we should all have an equal chance to share our work in forum threads.

But, as that's the path image threads are taking, I suggest that any posted image must be accompanied by a minimum of 100 conversational words of text (sentences and paragraphs - what we call a 'drabble' in the fanfiction world.)

Soon enough, a very few of us will dominate image threads and, eventually, Google. Hooray!

FAA will fill a niche as The Literary POD. As an added bonus, all that desperately composed text will give the ever-willing forum critics new opportunities to shine.

I'm game!

@Duane -- Thanks for that very informative link, Duane! I can use those features more efficiently now. :-)

Hey Cheryl... no.. why don't you ;O) please.. have at it. LOL

Don't look to me to start threads... anyone can do it.. as long as you follow Super Sticky Abbie's image posting rules ;O) hi Abbie!! I mean SUPER ABBIE...

Wendy... yea, yea, I know... I tend to agree with you , but in the end it is all about getting noticed by customers so if we are going to have image threads we might as well make them productive. ;O)

Duane,

TY,

Dave

Here's my thought for the day on this subject. I'm a grammar geek, so maybe no one else will be interested in this kind of thing, but I would have fun with it. Using a thread might be a great place for those who are uncomfortable with writing about their images to get some practice. Subject, verb, and a few adjectives are the basics. Have fun with sentence building. Make it a game rather than a chore. If it feels like rambling, don't worry about it. Remember the purpose would be to attract the search engines and practice your writing, not win a literary prize.

Not sure I'm ready to start the thread, but it might go something like this:

The purpose of this thread is to practice our writing skills, post our images, and attract search engines to our work. Do not post an image and run. If this thread becomes an image dump, it will be closed. Instead, post one of your images and write a paragraph of at least five sentences. Include at least one compound sentence, five adjectives, and the word "red."

Remember the purpose of this thread is to attract search engines and practice your writing skills, not win a literary prize.

Thoughts?

Nancy... I think your thread is ready [ and a very good idea as well ] to post just as it is.. copy and paste it into a new thread today ... let it fly ;O)

Done!

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2686063

YAY

Hope you will contribute. I don't usually start threads, so I'll feel like an idiot if it drops to the bottom without contributions.

Toughen up that little furry skin LOL

So, the thread is generating some discussion, but no images yet. I think the title of the thread is bad. A lot of people find writing tedious and the title "Writing Skills Game" is a non-starter. Maybe I should have entitled it, "Post your Red".

Why are you limiting this to images with Red.. or is that the Game? if so yes.. I think maybe rename [ not a game ] it and make it more general...

something along the lines of improving our descriptions to get our art picked up by google... I don't know. anyone else have some title suggestions?

What if the description writing post was about critiquing and or collaborating on writing the best google description for a given image?

"improving our descriptions to get our art picked up by google.."

Forget that. Attract PEOPLE. Attract each other. Attract others who aren't here yet. If you participate in interesting discussions with real people, Google will find you.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

I don't like to critique. Some kind of collaboration might work, but that would be a different thread. Red is part of the game, one more little challenge. Thanks for the encouragement.

Yea, but Dan that is what Nancy is attempting to do.. talking about our image descriptions... making them better...

Wouldn't discussing how to improve our image descriptions attract each other?

OK... wait.. Nancy.. are you saying that the challenge is to come up with descriptions for your included bicycle image?

If so.. I didn't get that at first... and then yes... that would be the challenge... and yes that would be more like a game.

I was thinking that we were supposed to post our own images, and they would have to have something RED about them...

So if that is that is the case use your wording skills and make that more clear in your OP.. that yours is the image... the only image... that we need to create creative descriptions for.

I think Dan is trying to say that our descriptions should be an attempt to draw people to our artwork - to the piece we are describing - rather than an attempt to work some kind of impersonal search engine system. I do think Nancy's idea has merit and, looking at her thread itself, she is obviously ready and willing to modify it to make it better.
Not trying to argue but just to help feel our way through this.

Well, scratch this - Dan said it very well in the other thread :)

"Wouldn't discussing how to improve our image descriptions attract each other?"

Possibly. Free-flowing discussion is attractive and builds upon itself. Homework assignments....meh.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Bob--No, no, not about my image, about an image of your own. I did mine as an example. Please choose one of your own images. Your first reading of my prompt was correct. Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you.

Got it ;O)

People obsessed with Google have completely forgotten what art is all about. They have allowed Google to dictate that they create art that includes the maximum number of "things with names" in it. So instead of intelligent art, we get more and more images specifically designed for preschoolers. Indeed, today's Google-friendly images are little more than colorful flashcards.

Google requires you to know exactly what you are looking for. That works for stock images. Does it work for fine art? Not very well!


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Dan... nothing works for everything.