Image Link SEO – You Can Get Hundreds of Links From Your Travel Photos ;)
We all need links to rank, but who likes getting links? It’s the pits… Pitching, writing, making, pitching, negotiating, waiting, pitching again (you’ve got to pitch 3 times or you not doing it right).
Lucky for me we’re kinda good at that here at TravelTractions, but what if YOU could generate hundreds of links, on autopilot?
All you need are some high-quality images, graphics, or videos.
Using this tactic you can build up to 20+ really powerful links and then earn countless more. We could be talking thousands here…
Image link building is by far one of the most effective link building tactics and it is not used very often, or it is at least something that is not followed through.
Most do the first 30% of the hard work and don’t reap the full rewards.
For travel bloggers, this is SUPER simple and easy and it’s one of the first things I do when starting a new site.
Visuals used for digital asset link building:
- Logos
- Infographics
- Product Photos
- Badges / Awards
- PDFs
- Employee Photos
- Graphs
- Maps
- Drawings
Photos and nice images are becoming extremely important in today’s goldfish generation. Content today needs to be engaging and easier to read – but that’s not why I’m writing this post.
I want to earn hundreds and thousands of links that are almost automated and white hat – dont we all?
A big problem for companies/writers is finding images for the things they write about.
I went through 200+ free stock image sites to find which was:
- being used the most
- which was the best free images
- where I could sell my images
- where I could build links
Image Submission Site Criteria:
- Allow profiles
- Have links to all the social profiles
- Say they need attribution to the photo taker
Image Link SEO Strategy
The basis of this is to upload all my BEST photos in the last few years to these image sharing and directory sites that require attribution to the photo taker (me or my website).
I make 100% sure to only set the rights to Creative Commons in the description.
After some time, bloggers and other websites will be using the pictures I uploaded. Sometimes they may be a little sneaky and not reference your site – you can find these sites by using some techniques mentioned later in this post.
An email to the webmaster to reference your site or give credit to the picture will almost ensure you get the link from the website. This can be done every 3 months and generate automatic links from awesome your pictures/images.
You can also get about 20 – 40 links for making profiles on these high authority stock photo sites, depending on how many images you upload.
I’ve known sites to get links from Rollingstone, BBC, The Guardian, and just about every big publication to these photographers in articles, when they use these images, so this strategy is mainly a long-term white hat. 😉 you good.
If you upload it to the wrong site that doesn’t get give any accreditation you could lose a great digital asset.
The thing to watch out for is submitting your images to sites that don’t give credits. Like this account on Pixabay that has links from a nice website but I can’t claim it.
So make sure you get the list that ONLY allows for link building or else you’ll be giving away your images for free.
How to check if someone is using your image
So now that you have uploaded your best images and allowed anyone on the internet to use them, what do you do? You find the people using your resources and digital assets and you ask them for a link. Easy.
By using Google Image search you can check if anyone has decided to use your image online.
I recommend checking if anyone has used your image, maybe every 3 months or so – try not to wait longer than that as the older the post is, the harder it is getting the link.
Bulk checking and automating notifications
Sometimes it can be hard to track down ALL of the people using all the images or digital assets that you have uploaded. Also checking every 3 months is a little bit of a pain in the ass, so I recommend some tools for finding your images online.
Tineye
That’s where Tineye comes in again. You can get the service below and do a bulk check once-off, and I’m pretty sure you’re guaranteed a hit.
If you upload 50 images and only 5 of them get used 10 times then that is 50 more link opportunities, well worth the $200, as it can work out to 4$ a link – dirt cheap.
The trick is to use stock image kind of photos/templates that people will use
Image Raider
This tool gives you a decent amount of free credits to get started.
It’s pretty simple
Step 1: Add your photos to Image Raider
Step 2: Set the frequency of how often you want it to check online
Step 3: Set your email so they can notify you
Step 4: Email the sites asking them to link to your site or threaten them with a DMCA (kidding – but legally you can)
As you can see this tactic has a ton of ROI, I mean you can build 20 links right off the bat, and then people use your images and start giving you credit, and if they don’t, you can email them to say that they legally have to! Winning.
Matt G Davison
Matt has done marketing for travel and tourism for over a decade. His first love is SEO, with entrepreneurship hotter on its heels than a girlfriend. When he is not looking up flights back to his next destination, you can find him in the garden, making excuses to walk Rusty, strategizing with the team and tinkering on sites until the early morning.
