Just got started with the plugin (completely lost but what else is new).  Looking at the list where the sitemaps are it generated 9 of them.

Would I use the image site map or a different one or all of them?

I'm also not seeing red or green anything so I have absolutely no idea how to use this thing.

Yoast seems to generate lots of different sitemaps. Just add all of them to google webmaster tools

On each page you will use a focus keyword eg bird or fluffy bird. Then just fill out till its green. Some people go to orange or yellow. My preference is all green

Thanks I'll add them all.

It's on the edit image area no wonder I couldn't find it.  I was looking for that information on the actual image page.

This ought to be fun to deal with.

Ive done about 260 out of 1200, takes a while

You've got nearly 3 times the amount I have to deal with.  I have 550 and the rest of my images are things like font sets and I'll deal with those once I deal with this.

A meta description is just a description of the image correct?

Yes, it is what the person sees on the google search screen

Thanks I've got it now...though it's extremely fussy.

bear with it. It's worth it.
This is my graph

Working on it but when my site goes down (I probably have a very noisy neighbor) makes it a bit difficult.  This late at night normally I can work without any interruptions.

My graph is a flat red line hopefully it'll start looking mountainous in a few weeks

I've gotten 20 out of 550 done.  They're all yellow and I'm okay with that.  None of them will probably go green I just can't get that wordy.

3,506 urls submitted of which 349 were indexed.  That'll take some time to get finished.

I guess we just keep plugging away

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 14, 2013, 20:53
I've gotten 20 out of 550 done.  They're all yellow and I'm okay with that.  None of them will probably go green I just can't get that wordy.
...
I guess we just keep plugging away

If it's any comfort, Anita, I'm plugging away on the same thing. It gets easier, but since I have a lot of variations on a theme (20+ red-winged or yellow-headed blackbirds in the exact same marsh, for example), it takes a lot of work to come up with individual titles and not repeat all the text verbatim. Forces creativity, which isn't all bad. Just takes time.

Good luck!

Quote from: marthamarks on August 14, 2013, 21:11

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 14, 2013, 20:53
I've gotten 20 out of 550 done.  They're all yellow and I'm okay with that.  None of them will probably go green I just can't get that wordy.
...
I guess we just keep plugging away

If it's any comfort, Anita, I'm plugging away on the same thing. It gets easier, but since I have a lot of variations on a theme (20+ red-winged or yellow-headed blackbirds in the exact same marsh, for example), it takes a lot of work to come up with individual titles and not repeat all the text verbatim. Forces creativity, which isn't all bad. Just takes time.

Good luck!

+ 1
That's a good way to look at it!

Quote from: Pilens on August 14, 2013, 23:25

Quote from: marthamarks on August 14, 2013, 21:11

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 14, 2013, 20:53
I've gotten 20 out of 550 done.  They're all yellow and I'm okay with that.  None of them will probably go green I just can't get that wordy.
...
I guess we just keep plugging away

If it's any comfort, Anita, I'm plugging away on the same thing. It gets easier, but since I have a lot of variations on a theme (20+ red-winged or yellow-headed blackbirds in the exact same marsh, for example), it takes a lot of work to come up with individual titles and not repeat all the text verbatim. Forces creativity, which isn't all bad. Just takes time.

Good luck!

+ 1
That's a good way to look at it!

Glad you agree, Pilens. I really do think that's the way we have to look at it. This is a long-long-term project for all of us. Nothing great happens right away. Rome wasn't built in a day. And neither is a cool SYS website. 

This isn't that easy.  I don't want long descriptions which isn't easy for illustrations because I really don't want to influence what the buyers would use the image for.

And for those of you that also purchase images do you read the descriptions at all and does that influence whether or not you purchase that particular image?

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 15, 2013, 01:07
This isn't that easy.  I don't want long descriptions which isn't easy for illustrations because I really don't want to influence what the buyers would use the image for.

And for those of you that also purchase images do you read the descriptions at all and does that influence whether or not you purchase that particular image?

it really doesn't matter -- what you're interested in here is getting search engines to present your image to potential buyers; you wont influence or confuse a buyer who knows exactly what they want, but you may attract some buyers who don't know the exact keywords to enter (shades of the ape-monkey debate in keywording).   much of the description you write should be with search engines, not human readers in mind.

eg, i'll write 'Nemrut Dag mountain' in some descriptions even though Dag means mountain in Turkish.  you're aiming for viewers not a literary prize

It just dawned on me that I was talking about the image description not the meta description in Yoast.  But I'm sure it could apply to both though.

Thanks.

As a buyer, i look at the image and buy. If i need a specific location, like a particular beach in st. Thomas, i read the description to be certain that beach is in fact in st. Thomas. Most of the time the rest is for seo and doesnt matter to me. There are instances where the title and description is important.

I can see where it would be important to do so.  I don't do locations shoots like landscapes (I wish I could but I have focus limitations in that area) but I have photographed wild life and some of them don't have a location so I'll fix that once I get to them.  The last things I uploaded were vectors that I'm slowly getting through.

I still have 450 or so more images to upload but at least those will get the SEO done at the time.  I already have the people physically around me doubting that this is going to work...and I would really like to shut them up.

Did anyone figure out a way for it to not red flag that there's no image on this page?  I remember reading that it reads alt tags but I don't remember anyone saying if they found a work around or not.

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 15, 2013, 19:00
I can see where it would be important to do so.  I don't do locations shoots like landscapes (I wish I could but I have focus limitations in that area) but I have photographed wild life and some of them don't have a location so I'll fix that once I get to them.  The last things I uploaded were vectors that I'm slowly getting through.

I still have 450 or so more images to upload but at least those will get the SEO done at the time.  I already have the people physically around me doubting that this is going to work...and I would really like to shut them up.

I think the description would be important for locations, scientific or even common names of animals, etc. Like if I were searching for a boxer dog, I would expect the description and title to indicate a boxer dog. If there were wrong keywords for the image, like if the dog appeared to be a boxer, but the keywords included bloodhound, pit bull, etc. I wouldnt even consider purchasing the image.

I do on my critter photos put in the scientific name and familiar name into the title and descriptions and have to edit in there where it was taken I noticed a few were missing.  I'll get to them when I get to their SEO pages.

Right now I'm on page 8 of 28 and hopefully can get a big chunk (if not all) the rest of it done this week when the kids go back to school.

I did see a little activity in my Google search query graph today though I'm not sure what the term impressions mean.

Impressions means you were listed on a search engine page. This indicates your seo efforts are working

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 15, 2013, 19:00
I already have the people physically around me doubting that this is going to work...and I would really like to shut them up.

+1

Doubting Thomases are everywhere. I just ignore 'em and soldier on.

Quote from: picture5469 on August 17, 2013, 19:57
Impressions means you were listed on a search engine page. This indicates your seo efforts are working

Cool that clears that up for me.

Yeah Martha hopefully the first sale will stop those shenanigans.  He keeps asking me nearly every day "You made a sale yet?" to which I reply "No, I'm working on it." He doesn't get that this takes time.  I'm working on it slowly but surely and he has to realize that it's not an instant thing to be listed and searchable.

Quote from: Anita Potter on August 14, 2013, 07:24
Thanks I'll add them all.

It's on the edit image area no wonder I couldn't find it.  I was looking for that information on the actual image page.

This ought to be fun to deal with.

Not sure what you guys are talking about. Besides the SEO on the image pages do you also SEO the individual images in the WP "Media Library" folder?