Lise Broer (a.k.a. Durova), a Wikipedia administrator, has written an article on Search Engine Land about how optimisers can get viral links from Wikipedia by uploading relevant images for use as illustrations alongside an article.
The article provides a checklist for Wikipedia image SEO, which is replicated here:
- Do a survey to identify specific articles that lack quality images. Your aim should be to provide unique content where it did not exist before. Create a list of images that would each enhance at least one article.
- Arrange the appropriate licensing and announce it on your client’s web site.
- Upload images to Wikimedia Commons. Include a statement about licensing status and an outgoing link as verification. Categorize the images.
- Over at Wikipedia, notify the appropriate WikiProject with a list that correlates available images to suggested articles and request assistance from volunteers. This indirect approach is diplomatic for conflict of interest situations.
- Be low key and tasteful. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
According to Cary Bass of the Wikimedia Foundation, “The Wikimedia Foundation appreciates good quality, freely licensed images, and credit where credit is due is never an issue. Many of our images fall under an attribution license, which often takes the form of a web link back to the releaser’s web page.”
