This article is about re-naming files from within Picasa, to provide SEO benefits for your blog.
Picasa's desktop software is a good tool for organizing and editing photos on your local computer.
I recommend doing this locally and then uploading the finished versions to Picasa-web-albums before putting them into a blog, because:
Picasa-desktop folders have a very nice relationship with files and directories with the Windows file system:
And this means that you can set various properties (eg file name) from either inside Picasa or from Windows.
Unfortunately captions and tags aren't visible when you display the photo in your blog - unless you show your photos in a slideshow from Picasa and turn captions on.
This means that the captions and tags are possibly not used by Google in understanding what the photo is about: I have never heard of SEO experts recommending that the IPTC/XMP fields should be keyword optimized. For many bloggers this will not be an issue - but it is if SEO is important for you blog.
Another approach is to put the keyword(s) into the file-name, because file-name is one of the factors that Google looks at when it is indexing images. And this has a nice spin-off for you as well - it means that they keywords are available to any file-search tools that you use on your computer, not just to specialised ones that work with images.
For a long time, I believed that to change the name of a file, I had to go out to my Windows files (using Windows Explorer or similar, and rename them there) - and then wait for Picasa to catch up with the change that I'd made in the file system.
Until one day, when I accidentally hit the F2 key, and found that it opens up a very useful dialog box indeed.
Navigate to the picture that you want to change the file-name for, using the Picasa-desktop software.
Press the F2 key. This opens a Rename Files window.
Type in a new name for the file, for example concrete-pig-outside-butcher-shop-in-ireland
Click the option buttons if you want to include today's date or the file-resolution in the name (I don't usually do this, because I organise my photos into folders according to the date they were taken)
Click Rename to save the change
Job done! The file has a new name in your computer's file system, and is still loaded in your Picasa database.
If you change the name in this way, you also need to change the link to the file in every place that it has already been used.
(NB If you only use your photos in one place each, then making a new copy with a different name, uploading it and changing all the existing links can be a good way to deal with copyright theives who have hot-linked directly to your photos.)
Today, I'm not sure if it matters so much. In most cases, it's probably more important to use rich, descriptive key words that describe all the aspects of the photo, than to worry about how they're laid out. But I do tend to follow the advice anyway - just in case.
Does SEO matter for your blog?
How to put a picture into your blog.
Understanding Picasa-desktop vs Picasa-web-albums
Taking action when someone has copied your blog without permission
I recommend doing this locally and then uploading the finished versions to Picasa-web-albums before putting them into a blog, because:
- The desktop tool has better editing tools (cropping, zooming, auto adjustment, adding watermarks) and Picasa-web-albums does.
- It lets you control the size of the uploaded file
- It's easier to ensure sure that you still have full-size files on my local machine for printing etc, as well as smaller, more optimized, copies to use on web-pages.
Picasa-desktop folders have a very nice relationship with files and directories with the Windows file system:
Each Picasa folder = one directory on your computer
Each Picasa photo = one file on your computer.
And this means that you can set various properties (eg file name) from either inside Picasa or from Windows.
How to associate keywords with photos in Picasa-desktop.
Picasa-desktop has two tools for adding keywords to photographs:- You can enter a caption for each photo. This is basically some text, which is stored "inside" the photo, in a hidden-field that is only visible when you are using a software tool that displays the captions. (In technical terms, the caption is stored inside the IPTC/XMP Description field inside the JPEG etc file that you have.)
- You can enter one or more tags for each photo - again, text (individual words or phrases) that is stored in the IPTC/XMP Keyword field.
Unfortunately captions and tags aren't visible when you display the photo in your blog - unless you show your photos in a slideshow from Picasa and turn captions on.
This means that the captions and tags are possibly not used by Google in understanding what the photo is about: I have never heard of SEO experts recommending that the IPTC/XMP fields should be keyword optimized. For many bloggers this will not be an issue - but it is if SEO is important for you blog.
Another approach is to put the keyword(s) into the file-name, because file-name is one of the factors that Google looks at when it is indexing images. And this has a nice spin-off for you as well - it means that they keywords are available to any file-search tools that you use on your computer, not just to specialised ones that work with images.
For a long time, I believed that to change the name of a file, I had to go out to my Windows files (using Windows Explorer or similar, and rename them there) - and then wait for Picasa to catch up with the change that I'd made in the file system.
Until one day, when I accidentally hit the F2 key, and found that it opens up a very useful dialog box indeed.
How to Change the name of a file in Picasa desktop
Navigate to the picture that you want to change the file-name for, using the Picasa-desktop software.
Press the F2 key. This opens a Rename Files window.
Type in a new name for the file, for example concrete-pig-outside-butcher-shop-in-ireland
Click the option buttons if you want to include today's date or the file-resolution in the name (I don't usually do this, because I organise my photos into folders according to the date they were taken)
Click Rename to save the change
Job done! The file has a new name in your computer's file system, and is still loaded in your Picasa database.
How to Change the name of a file in Picasa-web-albums
Currently there is no way to change the name of a file, once you have uploaded it to Picasa-web-albums or Google+ Photos. Your only option is to rename the photo on your desktop, and re-upload it.If you change the name in this way, you also need to change the link to the file in every place that it has already been used.
(NB If you only use your photos in one place each, then making a new copy with a different name, uploading it and changing all the existing links can be a good way to deal with copyright theives who have hot-linked directly to your photos.)
How to choose "good" names for your picture files
Early SEO advice was to use:- Lowercase letters only (some computers don't like uppercase)
- Only hyphens between words (not spaces, underscores, etc)
- Regular characters only (no � � etc)
Today, I'm not sure if it matters so much. In most cases, it's probably more important to use rich, descriptive key words that describe all the aspects of the photo, than to worry about how they're laid out. But I do tend to follow the advice anyway - just in case.
Related Articles:
How to show your photos in a slideshow from PicasaDoes SEO matter for your blog?
How to put a picture into your blog.
Understanding Picasa-desktop vs Picasa-web-albums
Taking action when someone has copied your blog without permission
How to rename picture files in Picasa
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Tuesday, 25 February 2014
