What is the SEO value of images of geographic areas (states, counties, cities) on a page?

[AlyssaN]

We want to put images for specific geographic locations on some new pages we are building and I am wondering if:

• A) What the SEO value of adding these images would be?
• B) Suggested Sources for the images. Right now we are looking at using panoramio, but would love some MOZ community advice!

Thank you for your help MOZ Community!

[KevinBudzynski]

What is the objective of doing this (this may help with the answer). As for the value (and overall SEO on images), check out Takeshi's answer int his post:

1. ALT Tags - This is the most important property for SEO. Use your keywords here.
2. Image Title - This has zero SEO value for Google, but can provide a good user experience
3. URL of JPG - This has SEO impact, use a relevant name:" keyword-keyword.jpg" not "IMG00001.jpg"
4. Schema - I haven't seen any concrete studies, but semantic markup helps Google determine what the image is about, so it can potentially help. Use it if it makes sense.
5. Meta Tags - Meta tags don't matter
6. Pinterest - Pinterest pulls all images on a page automatically as long as they are bigger than 80x80 pixels
7. Other social - Facebook Opengraph tags are great because they allow you to specify what image will be used when your content is shared on FB. However, it has no impact on SEO.

Other factors for image SEO: People linking to the image, the content surrounding the image (should be related to your image), the overall theme of your site (should be related to the image), use large, high quality images.

[MiriamEllis]

I would recommend exploring the concept of geotagging images, as well, if this is for a local business.