Have you ever done a search online and found that some of the returned results were Flickr images? The combination of new trends (search engines returning a variety of results—think Google Universal—and the increased number of users looking for a variety of multimedia) forces online marketers to focus on strategies that are more multi-faceted in their approach. SEO today must go beyond corporate on-site web optimization and incorporate social media/sharing sites like Flickr to broaden reach. But why should you take the leap?

Benefits of Flickr for SEO

1. Rankings: Images on Flickr rank well in the engines, especially Yahoo! Search results.
2. Reputation Management: Lets you interact with your audience, and lets your audience interact with your brand or product.
3. Increase Traffic: Flickr allows you to put links on your profile page, in image descriptions, and in comment sections, which can all add highly qualified traffic to your site.
4. Brand Exposure: Enabled creative commons licensing on Flickr means bloggers and online publishers are looking for images like yours to add to their own online content, like blogs and magazines (publishers that use your images must provide a link back to your site, which means even more additional traffic).

How to Begin and What Strategy to Use

Once you’re ready to begin your Flickr campaign, it’s only a matter of setting up an account, uploading photos and being a legitimate part of the community. But before you begin, you should understand some basic tactics to make sure you get the most out of your Flickr marketing efforts without overstepping any boundaries.

1. Use the right keywords: It’s important that relevant, descriptive keywords to describe the image are used throughout several elements of each photo. Before you begin, think about what the image conveys, what users are likely to search for to find your image, and what keywords have high search volume (you can use one of the Google keyword tools or any other keyword tool for this). Based on this research, determine a primary keyword, a few secondary keywords, and any other keywords that you think accurately describe your brand and image.
   • Name the image file: Use the primary keyword phrase in the actual image file name, separating words with hyphens. For example, it’s best that you don’t use a generic number string to name your file—the search engines actually do read file names to determine search query relevancy.
   • Use Tags: Tags are used to help Flickr users find images. Use as many keywords as necessary based on your research, but keep them relevant and be sure to include branded keywords.
   • Describe the image: Briefly describe your image using primary and secondary keywords. Include a link, but don’t keyword stuff the page or enter more than two links in the description field.
   • Notes: “Notes” is a relatively new feature which allows you (and other users, if you allow it) to “tag” parts of the image, similar to the tagging feature for photos facebook. You can add text and links in notes, which appear when a user does a mouseover for the particular area of the image where the note was placed. This presents an additional opportunity for traffic to deeper level pages, like products or product categories.
2. Interact with Users: Respond to user questions or complaints. Responding to feedback shows users that you’re concerned about what consumers/users think about your brand, and proves that you’re not just an automated brand evangelical robot infiltrating the flickr community.
3. Be a part of the community: Join groups that relate to your images or brand and submit appropriate photos to the group. You will likely be able to find a group (probably more than just one) that relates to your brand. If you can’t find it, you should create it and invite other users (who would naturally be interested) to join.
4. Be creative: Remember, members of the Flickr community are interested in the art of photography. A simple shot of your product is not going to work. The best images are professional looking, high quality and appeal to users because they demonstrate practical application.
5. Don’t copyright your images unless you have to: The whole point of Flickr is to be able to share images. If you can, set up a creative commons license (this can be done within Flickr). This means, people can use your image (there are several limitations you can set, however) on their websites as long as they give you credit (which, as I mentioned earlier, usually appears in the form of a link). You can request that others use a specific style for anchor text when they link to you (you can put this info in the description or on your profile).
6. Get a pro account: At only $24.95 a month, you get unlimited uploads, the ability to add videos, and some analytics info–Flickr tells you how users are actually finding your images…why not go pro and get more insight into your account photos?

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