We announced some big news this week - the launch of federated local search! This unique, blended local search technology combines all facets of local content into one search results page: business listings, movies, restaurants, events, sales, performers/celebrities (in town), sports, etc.

Another feature included in this product release is that we now display images on our SERPs (search engine results pages). Want to make your event or business stand out? Add a picture to your listing. Not only will it make your listing page more attractive, it also increases its attractiveness on SERPs, where your listing is competing with others for attention.

Look at these business listings in San Diego - which look more interesting to you: those with a picture, or those without?

Right, listings with images look better.

To add an image to your event or business listing, follow these steps:

1. Go to your listing page and log in.

2. Click on the “+ Image” link.

3. A pop-up screen like the example below will open. Select “Browse” to find your image on your computer.

Image size: For optimal display, we recommend uploading an image that is 400 pixels wide. We accept images in .jpeg, .png, or .gif formats. Your image may be cropped to fit into the available space, but the full image will be displayed when a user clicks on it. We recommend using photos over graphic images (like logos), because they are more appealing to other users (think about it, would you rather look at Maria Sharapova or a Nike logo?) - plus, they resize better.

3A. Adding the information in Step 2 is optional (Photo Credit, Caption, and Title/alt-text), but we recommend adding it to tell users more about your listing. The most important of the optional fields is the Title/alt-text, because it helps optimize your listing. When other search engines visit Zvents and index your page, some index images separately. This gives people searching on image sites, like Google Images, another way to find your listing (It’s a good idea to add alt-text to images on your own site too, to improve SEO). Currently, if you don’t fill in the Title/alt-text field, we automatically pull in the title of the listing.

4. After you’ve found your image and filled out the relevant fields, select Upload. Your image is now on your listing page!

5. Bonus! If you add multiple images to your listing, you can choose which image to set as the Primary Image by rolling over other images associated with your listing, and clicking on the small “+” symbol. The system will prompt you with the question “Are you sure you want to make this your primary image?”. Click “Ok”, and that image will become the main image on your listing, as well as the image displayed on SERPs.

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