How to drive traffic from Flickr with your article images
Among the leading photo sharing sites s Flickr. This photo sharing platform, owned by Yahoo, allows businesses to share their photos to boost their brand and online presence. With the recent prominence of photos, videos and even maps on Google results pages via its now standard universal search, this is a sure way to increase traffic to a website, as well as a key component in your off-page SEO efforts.
So, how does one use Flickr to get traffic and what should one do to increase the chances of success? Below are a few tips:
- a) Optimize your images
To start with, ensure that you are careful to optimize each photo you post on this platform for the search engines. Let each photo have a title, tags that are keyword rich and a photo description with a link back to your website.
- b) Quality photos
It goes without saying that the clearer the photo, the more engagement and attention it will generate. Therefore, try posting quality photos on Flickr. However, this does not mean that you have to become a professional photographer. In actual sense, amateur photos are normally the best as long as they are clear enough to send out the intended message.
Within this photo sharing platform, there is one cool feature that allows you to create a massive link building campaign with the images that you own. This feature is the ability to upload and designate your images with the creative common rights. When you upload a photo with the creative common rights on Flickr, you allow your images to be shared by other users in return for a mention about your business, and a link back to your website. This alone can create a whirlwind of traffic back to your website. Remember, Flickr is a PR9 website and any links from it, though no follow, are bound to bring some serious traffic your way while also enhancing your brand.
- d) Local Place Names
In your photo descriptions, incorporate local names where your business is located. This boosts your local search engine visibility and improves your rankings on the search engines. This means more traffic, more visibility and more brand awareness.
- e) Flickr Profile and Groups
Ensure that your profile page on Flickr is optimized with search friendly tags, titles, links and informative yet entertaining descriptions. While at it, also join relevant groups and engage with them by also posting photos there. This helps you connect with your customers and other locals directly.
- f) Share
Once you are done posting your photos on Flickr, make sure you share these photo pages on other social media sites like Delicious and Facebook. This is especially helpful if you have an image that has potential to go viral.
Using Flickr for Local PR
Besides the above tips, you can also take advantage of this platform to grow your public relations with your immediate community. To start with, this platform allows you to store photos and video content that you can either share with your team only by using the privacy settings, or with the general public.
Again, if you do not have any media kit online for your business, you can use your Flickr account to share the images you choose with your local press outlets. All you have to do is send them a link to your logo, product images and other relevant photos for download. This saves them from having to receive huge attachments via email for download.
Remember, Flickr is a social media platform which is meant for interactions via photos and videos, and for creation of communities. It is not meant for commercial advertising intents. So, as much as you want to use it to push your brand and generate more traffic to your website, be careful how you do this. Avoid spamming and other annoying habits, all of which may get you banned from this platform.
Simply keep things simple and fun, and genuinely connect with your audience. This is the sure way of getting a loyal community of fans who stick with you, your brand and even visit your website to buy your goods/services. It is also the only sure way of getting free brand ambassadors who will be ready and willing to spread out the word about your brand, goods and services to their friends and family. This might be the viral boost you need to expand your business!
This article is written by Govind Agarwal. He is an Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing Expert at Submitedgeseo, with over 6 years’ experience in the Web Marketing Techniques.