Google revamps their image search area

Posted on July 23, 2010 by itees

This past tuesday Google launched a major redesign of how we search for imagery. The revamp of Google Image Search includes new features like being able to select the size you need, whether it’s a face, photo, clip art or line drawing, or even what color you might want. The photos load on a landing page and you have an infinite scroll, which gives users up to 1,000 images per search page along with a hover pane, (pop up) that shows image data and what website the image came from.

From the San Jose Mercury News who interviewed Ben Ling, director of search products for Google: “We give you better information about the image on the result page so you make a better decision about what image you are interested in.”

Google’s image search now indexes more than 10 billion images.

So many people search the “web” and never even notice the top left has other categories, such as videos, maps, news, shopping, mail, etc…

In searching for the right image, remember just because it’s up there on the web, doesn’t mean it’s free to use. Make sure to be careful about usage and that many images are copyrighted!

Knowing When Your Website Needs A Complete Redesign

Posted on December 10, 2009 by itees

A few years ago, I started another website, so I’d have a vehicle for self-expression. Ideas that just come to me and a place to show them. I already had a portfolio website with a body of work, and as I complete projects, I add more and more to it, but this new site would be different.

This would be for logos, and t-shirt ideas, about conservation, being a “green” person and designer, and assorted other ideas. So I created the site, put the images up there, and waited. Well, 2 years later, it got minimal traffic and after much thought about why, I realized it wasn’t because the imagery wasn’t any good, it was because the site wasn’t content rich, and no one could find it.

This taught me a valuable lesson in not just naming pages or posts, which I’d already known about, since earlier this year, when I took a series of online webinars in SEO content and tagging, but how the pages need to be content rich, and have the right keywords or tags, and categories. The web is a big filing system and it not only files your content by the title of the page, and the tags it has, but the date it was published. So, when your searching for something, it’s going to show you the most current as well as closest match to your query. This is why blogs are usually more effective than regular websites. Most websites are built, but rarely maintained, and just sit there, getting older and more out of date, unless you’re an artist, of course, and updating your work often.

So, I dumped the old site, created a new custom designed, (of course) WordPress blog in it’s place, and started posting articles, galleries, and made sure everything was linked and tagged. I’ve posted almost 50 times already and have all sorts of galleries from gardens I visit while riding my bicycle, to going to the Yankee Parade in NYC.

I’m also quite good at publicity, so I’ve been pushing the blog’s address, articles and galleries through social media.

Well, I’m now going to report that the new blog, has surpassed what I imagined and now gets comments, has followers, and the traffic has improved by 1,000% or more.

When you put information out there that someone might find useful, it’ll always draw more more traffic than just showing off work. If they find the resource interesting, it may send them to your portfolio site as well. So, when you want to start a new website, consider carefully what the usage is, who’s coming to it and why, and maybe it should be a blog.

How to Stay Close to the Top of Google for Designers and Artists

Posted on November 24, 2009 by itees

Recently, I had a new client call me about a book project. Whenever someone calls me, I always ask, how did you find me? It’s always important to hear about their search, whether word-of-mouth, print or online. In this case, she told me that she searched online for “book designer”, “layout designer”, and “book cover designer” in New Jersey. She said she searched quite a while and didn’t find any NJ book designers until she saw my website. It bothered me right away that it had taken her so long to find me, and I immediately realized my “book” design page needed updating.

I changed the title tag as well as the keywords in hopes that it will now turn up on Yahoo and Google faster. Each page of a website or blog has a page name, searchable keywords, a description, a title tag and may have other tags as well. Blogs also have many tags, and searchable words and links, which is what makes them so search engine friendly. Blogs also get updated almost daily which is what keeps their content fresh.

The problem we face as designers, rather than bloggers, is that our sites are mostly images because we’re displaying our work. The best thing we can do to make these gallery pages search engine friendly, is to name the pages something very specific, such as: green-book-publishing-designs(dot)html. We also need to update the pages of our website often, so the published date is current, and make sure the tags are specific and in order of importance. You can also put in some captions or put tags on the images. You might also create a few pages that are text content rich, and these pages may help send traffic also.

Another tip is, never leave a word space when naming a page. I see this all the time. For ex: green book publishing designs(dot) html. You must use either green-books or green_books (dash or underscore). The web does not understand an empty space, and will fill it with a (20%) and then your page title will look like this, green20%books.

Always remember that the internet is like a gigantic filing system, and the most current and the closest match to your search is what comes up, so update your sites and blogs often, and be as specific as possible.