SEO How To Naming Image Files

OSPREY CATCH A GLIMPSE (Pandion haliaetus, Balbuzard pêcheur, OSPR) Lake Blue Cypress, Florida. Image Copyright ©Christopher Dodds. Canon EOS-1D MKIV500mm F4 IS & 1.4X Extender III. ISO 1,600  f/5.6 @ 1/2,500s Manual. PURCHASE A PRINT or LICENSE IMAGE FOR PUBLICATION HERE.


Here's another Osprey from my recent Ospreys Galore and so much more workshop/safari at Lake BLue Cypress in Florida. We had many opportunites to photograph Ospreys returning to their nests with fish. Be sure to sign-up early for next year and avoid the planned $100.00 price increase.

Naming an image with a descriptive file name is a crucial step to selling more images on-line. I can't tell you how often I see missed sales opportunities for great images because the photographer used some sort of code to name their images "30d-070826-7186.jpg". Worse yet, is leaving the file number that was created by the camera when they pushed the shutter button "img_0983.jpg".

Search engines can't interpret an image and decide what the subject is; you need to tell it what the subject is. For birds, I typically include the English, French and Latin names of the species, the four digit American Ornithologists' Union alpha code and my name separated by an underscore or hyphen and ending in the original file name as created by the camera to avoid duplicates "Osprey-Pandion-haliaetus-Balbuzard-pecheur-OSPR-CDODDS_74F2591"