As part of the design of a free template for a CMS, i have decided (in the footer) to include some links. Instead of doing this in the usual manor and using text links that would contain the keywords (and hence be good for link pop) i've decided to use slightly transparent grey images to visually show the websites that are linked to. Obviously the images will be clickable and will start to provide backlinks (which is obviously good) but obviously won't be targetted towards the keywords. What is the best way to also include my keywords and will using images be as good for link building as a text link? My idea is to use alt tags (containing the keywords) and to also give the image specific names that also contain the keywords. Any other suggestions?
alt tags are the only thing you can really do with images. if the links are coming from relevant/related sites that will also help i would think. a text link would still probably give you more keyword help in the search engine eyes, but images will still help.
Well, if the images are actually named correctly - i.e., 'Lamborghini.jpg' instead of 1044.jpg for example - that might give a tiny, slight boost, in addition to the alt tag.
Plus, if someone is using an Image Search tool, they could also provide some traffic to your website. I've got some photos of Disneyland on one blog, and they keep pulling in traffic !