If you're running a WordPress blog as your real estate website, you're probably running a Plugin that tells Google (and others) about your site's sitemap: where to find the content.
Did you know that you can also tell Google specifically about images, too?
If you have a lot of images, and you've taken the time to name them according to what they are (burlington-heights-home-for-sale.jpg, etc.), getting them indexed will help boost your visibiity (and findability).
Some things to note:
- Google doesn't like images linked in from elsewhere - it only wants the images hosted on your own site.
- It won't find images loaded into NextGen Gallery (NGG). I don't know why (yet). The developer for that plugin is working on sitemap code for NGG.
- You may have to hand-edit the file to get rid of stuff it doesn't like when you try to upload it. That might seem scary but once you study the file for a few minutes, you'll see the pattern in the XML and will be able to delete the problem lines even if you have NO idea what you're doing - just look for the patterns.
- When you have the file ready, you can upload it via your Google Webmaster Tools Account.
If you have an image-heavy site, this is well worth your time. If you don't have an image-heavy site, it might be time to add more to each blog posting, for that little extra kick.
Remember, if all of this seems overwhelming, you can increase your WP knowledge bit by bit over time. If you do that, one day you will know a LOT and will be way ahead of your local competition.
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