Geotag Photos for Google My Business
The term “geotagging” refers to the practice of adding precise geographical information, such as a specific latitude and longitude, to a website or image located online.
It’s the most popular technique for adding location-specific data to your website, usually by including it in photos and images. This information isn’t visible to your website visitors, but search engines read it, catalog it, and analyze it while crawling the internet in search of facts.
The search engines understand where the photo came from and can use that information to help them connect it to its subject or time and place of capture, or both. You can set the geotagging to be a particular location you choose, down to specific latitude and longitude coordinates.
How Do I Add Geotagging Data to Photos and Images?
The simplest and most effective approach to ensure that all of your photographs have GPS data is to use a modern GPS-enabled phone or camera. Smartphones, as well as digital cameras, are ideal for this.
If you’re taking your photos on a smartphone, ensure you have your phone’s Location Services switched on. If you do, your photos will be correctly geo-tagged, and nothing else is required. If you’re using an iPhone, you can find instructions on turning your location services on here.
It is also possible to manually modify the photo’s geotag data if you have old images that you wish to add geotagging data to. This information is included in any JPEG picture’s Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) data, as well as other technical details. You may open the pictures and add geotag information using a number of programs.
For your convenience, please see a list of free tools below:
Where to add geolocated photos?
My Business is always a good place to start when it comes to SEO, but don’t stop there. Check everywhere where you include a business citation to see whether you can upload photos where geo data could make an impact. Think about Social media accounts, directories, your own website etc.
On your own website it would make sense to put it on the contact page where location data plays a big role. But also your About page, blog and product/service pages.
Does EXIF data impact image SEO?
First let’s dive into what EXIF data exactly is. EXIF stands for Exchangeable image file format. EXIF is a file structure format used in digital cameras to store data in images or photographs. Consider this data as a picture’s fingerprint for .JPG files.
EXIF data contains information such as:
- Date
- Time
- Camera model
- Settings (aperture, shutter speed, flash..)
- Geolocation
- Personal information (email, phone number etc)
Image SEO is all about helping search engines understand what your picture is about. Currently we have great artificial intelligence technology that pretty accurately determine what is in the picture, but this is not enough.
EXIF data can tell exactly tell the search engines the data they need. Especially through the Geolocation and personal information. It can easily understand the where the picture was taken, and who made the picture for example. This can then be linked to your website, email or company. And thus your GMB listing for example.
Along with your EXIF data strategy keep monitoring how your listing is performing in term of rankings on the SERP. By using our ranking checker SEO tool, you can easily perform a quick audit for different locations and keywords to store all that information at once so it’s saved as well!
How do you optimize EXIF data for SEO?
Step 1 : choose the images that you want to rank with.
On average, image metadata consumes roughly 15% of a JPEG file’s weight.
This is why image compression services frequently eliminate this information. As a result, you must establish a compromise between EXIF / IPTC data that you can remove and the data that you wish to keep.
Step 2: choose the best keywords and add relevant data for SEO
Keyword stuffing and duplicate content are detrimental to SEO (and images SEO).
Be creative and add data that is relevant, such as : 2 or 3 keywords, author and location. IPTC / EXIF data might be extremely relevant for local business SEO.
Add data that is useful, such as: 2 or 3 keywords, author and location.
And you are done, as simple as that!
Conclusion
Geolocated data may help to rank you higher in search engines. Geotagged images can be uploaded through various platforms such as your own website, social media accounts, or directories. Geotags can be added through free programs or by modifying Geolocated data directly. Geolocation information is included in any JPEG file’s Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) data, as well as other technical details. EXIF / IPTC Data may help to rank you higher in search engines due to the detailed location and personal information it.
Happy Crush!
SEO Lover, my motto is Action Over Words.
