How to Get Videos and Images to Show Up in Google Search

I am sure you have seen images and videos in Google search whenever you are searching for anything. If you display multimedia on your website it is an additional way for you to get traffic to your websites, but if Google can’t find it or do not know what topic it is about they will do you no good.

How to get images to show up in Google images search

When you add images to your blog posts and pages it is a great way to get additional SEO for your search terms but you must give the search engines specific information before they can index them properly. A search engine is a robot, and as such it cannot see the image to know what it is therefore you must tell them within the code of your pages. You do this by placing your keyword in the file name (ie: multimedia-help.jpg), the ALT tag, or alternate text, also should contain your keyword (ALT=multimedia help), your image title (title=multimedia help) and your image description (description=Multimedia help for webmasters).

In WordPress, it is very easy to include this step every time you insert an image into a post or page. Make sure you fill in every field (caption is optional) and rename your image. One word of caution, keep it short and to the point. Only one keyword should be used. This is NOT an opportunity to put in a long list of keywords as that will hurt you rather than help.

By using the images as a means of supporting your content and keywords, you can get a few additional keywords into your post without having to cram them down the throats of your visitors. Nothing is worse than going to a website and having the keyword being overused to the point where it is almost painful to read.

You will find your images now show up in the Google image search for your search terms because you have given the search engines a clear message within the code of exactly what the image is about. If they still are not showing up you can create and submit an Image Sitemap to the search engine. With WordPress, you can use the Google XML Sitemap for Images plugin to handle this task.

How to get videos to show up in Google video search

Video is one of the most effective means to get your message out there. They convert better than any other form of marketing, they keep a visitor on your site longer which improves your bounce rate and people just tend to prefer video over reading. The best way to get your videos to show up in search results is:

Upload it to YouTube.
Embed the YouTube code on your website
Submit a Video Sitemap to the search engine

There is no denying how big YouTube is and the fact that Google owns it tends to make them favor their own over another website’s videos. So if you want your videos to appear in the video search, you really do need to utilize this. Another benefit of hosting your videos on YouTube is the amount of traffic it will generate to your website. Just make sure you put your website URL in the video and in the video description.

For WordPress, you can use the Google XML Sitemap for Videos plugin. This will create a sitemap of all YouTube videos on your blog and submit it to the search engine. You do not have to worry if someone takes down their video that you have embedded on your site as the plugin will deal with that but for your viewer experience you should remove or replace it with a functioning video.