Images, text and SEO (where to begin?)

[TySkby]

Hello,

I'm working on a site that is a web representation of a magazine (for your reference: http://jettisonquarterly.com ). You can view and "flip" through the entire magazine's most current issue.

The problem is that since the site's content is designed for a specific aesthetic in inDesign and each page is an image with text (no CSS text overlays- just "flat" images). But the images are very text-heavy, and to achieve good search engine results, crawlers need text.

I have the plain text for each article of the magazine, and I need a way to associate that text with a specific page and a specific link to that page.

So the layout of the current issue is:
-A single page page (currentissue.php)
--Div container using jQuery to scroll the images
---Child div containing an element
---Child div containing an element
---etc.

What I need is a way to associate the child divs or the image elements with large amount of text. I'm thinking something XML-based, like:

<page>
  <url>(the URL that the search engines should give</url>
  <text>
    A huge block of text that is many, many paragraphs long.  It is the same text that the image contains, but actual text, so it can be searched.
  </text>
</page>

where each node is associated with an individual child div or image element.

Is there a way to do this? I know this is very abstract, so I will happily clarify things if anyone is confused. Please check out the link I provided if that helps. This is something that I want to provide to search engines as a way to allow them to index the content of each image, and still be able to have the search engine's link take them to the specified URL.

Please help- I'm not sure I even know where to start with this kind of thing.

Thanks,
Ty

[sarah newton]

Hi, thanx for such explanatory post.

[TySkby]

Thanks for reading it! Any thoughts?

[Dannyj28]

Your idea sounds well thought out for seo purposes.

I would use a JQuery toggle plain text button.

I don't see the need for XML unless it's required for your backend.

[rsleventhal]

IMNSHO, while your idea is good, it should also be combined with and XML sitemap for the crawlers to chew on. Therein, you can be as verbose as you need to (i.e. include the full text of the text in the 'text-heavy'images, etc...).

You've got what sounds like a solid method. Adding the sitemap will, I think, lock it in well.

There's are many free XML sitemap generators available that would be good as a start for your project. Once generated, you can tweak the text to suit. The generator I use most is posted below [1].

HTH,
-Ray

[1] http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

[JamieLynnSEO]

xml sitemap will help you out a lot for sure. rsleventhal nailed it. :)

[pause4]

Search engine optimization is most important for every website to increase traffic

[pause4]

For business wbsite SEO plays a great job to increase traffic