Yahoo Store Product Images Get a HUGE Update!
If you haven't heard, Yahoo has released a new AWESOME feature for product images. This new update will help your SEO efforts and help your products be found in Google Images.
Images can generate a TON of awesome traffic from image-based searches.
Background Information
Head over to any item page in your store, right click on the image and choose
"View Image."
Now take a look at the URL for the image.
The URL not only doesn't make sense but, the address changes on a regular
basis.
Why?
When people first started putting their websites online, bandwidth was a HUGE
issue. You were charged based upon how often your online files were being
downloaded (viewed). So people started using the URL of images from other sites
- basically stealing their bandwidth.
Thankfully bandwidth issues are not a problem for us today. In fact, if you
do a comparison of the different plans available for Yahoo Stores... they
mention nothing about bandwidth.
So What's New?
Yahoo announced July 8th that they will be offering static URLS for all item
images. WOHOOO!
Basically it means that your product images are going to have a URL that does
not change and is RELEVANT to the product.
Example - Let's go back to the item we used previously. Let's click the image
button, upload our image, and right click to view the image.
Look at that awesome URL for our image! It is relevant to our product.
However, the name may be a little long.
You see, Yahoo uses the name of the item as the name of the image. This
usually works great but, if you have really long product names, you are going to
have really long image names.
So let's change it!
Click edit on that page and you will see a fancy new variable -
"To change the file name of this image, enter
a new name in the Image-Name field. A number will be added to the end of the
file name (e.g., my-item-name-01) for all versions of this image that are
generated for your store. SEO efforts for previously-uploaded images may be
impacted when an existing image is given a new file name."
That's super easy! I am going to change the name of the file to
boo-crew-charm-pack-sweetwater. Then click update.
Right click that image again and look at our new pretty file name.
MUCH BETTER!
Did you notice a number was added at the end though?
"A number will be added to the end of the base file name for all versions of
this image generated for the store (e.g., main item image, thumbnail, etc.); for
example: chocolate-frog-01, chocolate-frog-02.
That makes sense!
Want to know something else cool? You can change those image names in Catalog
Manager too.
**Remember** If you change the file name, make sure it is relevant to the
product, uses keywords your customers will use, and don't keyword stuff!
Does my store have Static URLs Today?
Yahoo stated that these updates will be done in stages.
As soon as your store has this new feature, you should see a notice in your
Yahoo Store that looks like the following:
**Please Note** The first phase of changes will ONLY work on new images. The
second phase will change all of your existing item images to the SEO-friendly
URLS.
Can I get the new image names on my products before the release of Phase 2?
Yes, and no.
Yes you can if you reupload all of your images.
No it won't happen automatically until Phase 2.
Can we help you reupload all of your images? Absolutely. Once you get the
message above,
send us over a quick email, tell us how many products you have, and we will
run a test on your website.
If it works, we will send you over a quick quote. Pricing will range from
$100 - $300 based upon how many products you have :)
As always, if you need help with ANYTHING at all, give us a call toll
free right now 888-312-7839.
Sincerely,
Shawna Seigel
(Formally Shawna Fennell but I got married on the Fourth
of July in 2010!)
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Level 1 - Overnight Success
