Google's update on local search results and Pigeon

By this time every one must have noticed/read about Google's new Update on local searches. Since Google didn't provide this Local Search Algorithm update any name, Search Engine Land has provided this  a name as "Pigeon Update" and the reason that they are providing behind this update is that "because this is a local search update and pigeons tend to fly back home."

IS IT A PIGEON UPDATE?

It is said that this update has benefited Yelp results. Earlier, Yelp claimed that Google is partial while displaying local results. The links of Yelp were shown with lower ranks even if somebody types Yelp with his local query. But now, after Pigeon update things are fine for Yelp.

Google has informed that this update is initially working on US English results and will provide the most relevant experience for users searching for local results.

Google has not yet shared any details on percentage of queries will get impacted with this algorithm, or it will hit any spam algorithm or what other languages/countries would have the roll up on this update.
Let's wait for the details on this and discuss further about this new update.

Save now and read later-new feature announced on Facebook

Facebook has announced new feature for is users, you can now save posts on Facebook to read them later. The posts can be a page's posts, links, movies, places etc.
You must have felt somewhere while browsing Facebook, about the need of such a feature. Sometimes you wish to show someone a post you liked a lot and shared it too but somewhere it gets lost in news feed. Also, there are things that you don't want to share but certainly want to read later; Facebook has made your wish come true.

HOW CAN YOU SAVE THE ITEMS ON FACEBOOK?
Below are some snapshots that I've shared to make it easier to understand on how to save items on Facebook?

The option to save the post is highlighted.

WHERE CAN I SEE MY SAVED ITEMS ON FACEBOOK?

On left corner where your name and other notifications are shown (messages, groups, games, news feed etc.), just there you can see the saved items. 

The box highlighted in red shows the saved post.

HOW THE SAVED ITEMS ARRANGED?

The saved items are arranged automatically under most suitable category.

You can see the various categories where the saved items will get placed.

CAN I SAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE?

Yes, Facebook has provided option to save a complete Facebook page for later reference(or reading).

The feature is available near the message section of a Facebook page. Check out in the screenshot below:

Other than this, there is one more thing about this feature, these saved items are private, that is they are visible to you only and if you want to share it, you can do that too. See the snapshot below:

The "lock" icon shows that it it private and I can share it if I wish too.

My first blog on LinkedIn

For past few days, I've receiving updates on LinkedIn on my connections writing blogs over LinkedIn; first I thought its some premium account feature but today morning my doubt got cleared and I was given the feature to write a blog on LinkedIn.
I have obviously written a blog on LinkedIn but yes didn't want to miss to share it here on my blog.
The LinkedIn blog has features like:

1. A basic tool bar for editing content

2. With this tool bar, add links and images too.

3. You can preview and publish the post.

4. After publishing you can even share it on other social media sites like, Facebook, Twitter, Google plus and yes LinkedIn of course.

5. Check stats like, number of views, number of likes, dislikes and yes edit the present content.

This feature will be a good source of Social Media Marketing and it would easier to reach your target audience. 

And yes, the link to the LinkedIn post is public. Search engines can crawl these links. 

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS?

ebay- what hit the website, Google Panda 4 or something else?

Google Panda 4.0 hit many websites and at the same time ebay got a hit wherein some of its webpages "disappeared" from Google search.
Google Panda 4.0 and Payday loans 2.0 were released last week. Panda 4.0 said to affect different languages to different extents and it affected around 7.5% of English results.
Last June, Google rolled out another type of update that says to fight with "very spammy queries" and the spammy queries were like, payday loans, insurance, accident etc. etc. The new version was rolled along with Panda 4.0 and said to hurt 0.2% English queries and queries of different languages too.

While, ebay has nothing to do with payday loans (but of-course people waited for payday to buy stuff from ebay), many of its webpages were out of Google's search.
Initially it was thought that Panda 4.0 has done this harm to ebay but sooner the real reason came out--it was a manual penalty posed on website; though neither Google or ebay has confirmed about the same.
It is thought to be a manual hit because:

• If it would be a Panda hit then complete website should vanish from Google search.
• Only pages that contained "bhp" in their URL are not there in Google search.
• Such pages were actually door way pages---which is no no thing for Google.

People are waiting for either of the parties to speak on this. Let's wait for the actual reason.

Original source: http://recode.net/2014/05/23/yes-google-punished-ebay-for-bad-seo-practices-but-it-wasnt-part-of-panda-update/

Changes on twitter profile page

Today when I logged into my mail, i received a mail saying "Give your profile a makeover." via Twitter.com. This sounded interesting and the changes were interesting too.
Seems after Facebook has made changes into its profile pages, twitter is running in the same race.

The changes that I found are:

1. A banner image (same as Facebook cover pic) of size 1500*500 pixels.
2. A profile image (placed at similar place where Facebook's profile image is placed) of size 400*400 pixels, placed at left corner of the banner image.
3. About me section is kept below the profile picture like earlier times.
4. Website link is quite visible. (thumbs up to this)
5. Trends, follower suggestions has moved from left to right.
6. Pinning a tweet to top of profile page (again a feature of Facebook page).

I've attached related screen shots below:

Changes on profile page of Twitter

Banner image and profile picture

Pin your Tweet to top of profile page

Pinned Tweet on top of profile page

Follow me on Twitter for more updates @swati28tripathi

Now Save bookmarks in Bing

With Beta version, Bing has introduced a new way to save book marks with it. Place a little box on the toolbar of the browser and save the bookmarks and check them later.
The link for Bing Saves is http://www.bing.com/saves
To save your webpages with Bing, all you need is to stay logged in to microsoft account.
Below is a screenshot of Bing's Saves page

In the above image you can see the bookmarklets marked in red boxes.
There are three more windows, showing, bookmarks saved by you, trending feeds and public feeds. As the name suggests, trending- are the topics which are talked most and public feed shows the real time tagged topics.
While you save something with Bing Saves, you can tag the webpage which eases the search of that particular topic.
With Bookmarklet "Save on Bing", you can directly save the webpage to Bing; otherwise you can paste the URL and save it to Bing as shown below:

The Floppy sign is for saving the webpage. you can see that I've saved three webpages, for one of the webpages I've provided the hash-tag too.

This is a smart approach by Bing to provide its user with universal bookmark, which he/she can access anywhere.
But remember as of now its an experiment!!!

Do you have multiple admin for Facebook Fan page?

This post is specifically for those who are dealing with Facebook fan pages and they have multiple admins to handle that fan page.

There have been a time when one of the admins has updated something on fan page that was not supposed to be shared or mistakenly shared; it was hard to trace which admin has done this. To ease such situation, Facebook has provided a solution to admins. Now, it shows the name of the admin under the post. 

As soon as you log-in to your fan page, Facebook is displaying a notification about it,

As soon as some other admin update something on fan page, the name of the admin is visible,

In the above picture you can see the other admin's name, on my fan page.

Remember that only admins could see the other admin's name. The admin's name is not public and no one can check the admin of the page (unless admin himself announces his name).

This is a fantastic update by Facebook and very much helpful to track records. 

NOTE: This update is visible for posts that updated after 20th February, 2014.

Yahoo changes the Home page

Did you check the new Yahoo Home page?
The slider has gone wider and the news section are more clearer. Earlier I had to dig in to search for sign in and check mail option, they are now placed well in the right corner.
The changes that I could find, i've marked in red.
Can you trace other changes on Yahoo homepage?
Yahoo has promised for more big and small changes. Let's wait up for the changes to come.

Poor grammar and spelling mistakes in content can harm ranking in Bing

While Google introduced "Panda" and "Penguin" for poor quality content, they never defined what kind of content is "poor quality".
Bing has taken the step regarding this and has detailed out what kind of content will be "poor content" for Bing and how can such content harm the ranking of the website. Bing has laid down a list of common mistakes that frequently happens, some common phrases that are used at wrong places, punctuation mistakes, sentence structure and many other such things.
Bing, clearly stated that when poor content is not meant for reading for humans then it is not meant to rank either.
I am a person with bad grammar and have to take these Bing English classes.
Many SEO people are appreciating the step taken by Bing as it clarifies what is a bad content unlike Google which is still not clear on what basis of bad content can your website be penalize.

Happy New Year

Thank you 2013 for giving wonderful days. Wishing 2014 to give more memorable moments, welcome to the new year 2014.

Happy New Year 

Facebook's "Sympathize" button on the way

Facebook fans have been eagerly waiting for "dislike" button but Facebook persons have sidelined it and have decided to launch "sympathize" button.

A sad post on Facebook is liked by many people, creating a confusion what was to "like" in that sad post like death, breakup or bad day or anything sorrowful.

The picture above is from HuffPost, where an artist has predicted how the "sympathize" button could look like.

At Facebook Hackathon, the engineers of Facebook decided to introduce this sympathize button. The button would read these many people "sympathize with the post" rather then these many people "like this (sad post)".

The button would not be visible in a normal post; it would be visible when the person who posted a status uses negative mood emoticon (of Facebook) like, sad, crying, doomed etc. The like button would change to sympathize button.

Facebook members attend these hackathon to introduce/discuss such unique ideas on human behavior with Facebook. Friend suggester, facebook chat etc are results of these Hackthon.

Let's wait when this "sympathize" button goes live and is used on the timeline.

Original Source: huffingtonpost.com

Go to different places with Place Pins on Pinterest

I am fan of Pinterest and I just love this website a lot. The DIY and How to are my favorite sections. Pinterest is a simple concept social media site. It has introduce one more beautiful thing "place pin". As soon as you'll login, it'll show you a screen something like:

I've created a board and pinned some places in it. The fun part is that the destinations are pinned on a map. To add places, add city, the place you want to visit in that city, upload a photo or pin from the suggestions, provide a description and you are done with the pinning.
Visit board https://www.pinterest.com/swati28/places-i-would-love-to-go/ . I've pinned 4 places for trial purpose.
This update will be helpful for trip-planning websites. The owners of pinterest are launching Android and iOS app too, to make it easier for users to add places to their boards. The map provided along with pinned places would help in guiding to reach that place. You can add restaurants, bus stands, airports and many things to the board, or follow someone else's to guide yourself to that place.
Tripadvisor is providing database to Pinterest; Foursquare, Stamen, MapBox are providing maps to make the pin-board interesting.
USERS: Go ahead, pin and plan your destination.
TRAVELLING WEBSITE OWNERS: optimize the board perfectly to not to miss this "Place Pin"

Bing webmaster introduces "connected pages" in Dashboard

This is interesting, Bing webmaster has added a new and exciting feature called as "connected pages". This tool allows you to connect following pages that are linked to website:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Google Plus
• Windows App
• Android App
• iOS App
• Pinterest
• Windowsphone
• Youtube
• Instagram
• Myspace

The "connected pages" tool is accessible in Dashboard--->Configure My Site--->Connected Pages.
The pages that are to be connected should have link of the website in them, else those will not be verified.
The data will be shown after 72 hours. This tool will help in letting know what social media platform is working best for the website. It would become easier to make strategies accordingly. I've added mine and waiting to see the results in webmaster tools.
Will share the stats here too.

Free rank checking tool

If your website is targeted in various countries, you need to know the ranks of various keywords. There are many tools that can ease this work. I've been working with few such tools and will share here.
I would appreciate if reader's could add more tools to this list.

1. Rank checker by SEO Book : This was the tools that I used. It can check ranks for Google.com domain for free version and more international domain for paid version. You can check ranks of single to multiple keywords. Whole process is defined in the videos. This is an add-on (i use it on firefox) and it is quite good with the accuracy of ranks. 
2. Rank tracker: This is a power-pack tool which can not only be use for checking ranks but also for checking back-links of website. The free version is accurate but if you are using it with country specific IP then accuracy increases more. Free version wouldn't allow to save reports-not a problem, take the snapshots. The paid version is amazing and works perfect. One more thing that you may require is captcha filling tool, or better is to fill captcha on your own.
3. Hows this look in: I encountered this tool recently and found it good for manual checking of keywords. This is limited to 8 countries (US, UK, Russia, Netherlands and others). The team is working to add more TLDs. You have to register before using this tool.
   The fields that you need to fill are URL-fill in google.com or .co.uk as per your convenience, Location- The TLD set in URL and Browser form the drop down menu. After these fields are filled you'll be provided with virtual Google of that area to check the ranks manually. 
4. Google adword preview tool  This is a very good tool with one limitation, that you have to check ranks manually. Set domain, language, location and device and check the ranks.

Points to note

• Tools #1 and #2 are good for checking ranks of too many keywords.
• Tool #3 and #4 are good for checking ranks manually.
• Tool #1 and #2 may give wrong ranks if using free. 
• Tool #3 and #4 are accurate with ranks but are tedious tools if the number of keywords are high.

Create custom Google plus URL for Google page or profile

This may be an old news for few but I came to know about it today so thought to share it here.
Like Facebook provided feature of having custom URL for Facebook profile and Facebook fan page, one can have custom Google plus URL too.
I created my custom URL like https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SwatiTripathi/ 
Some easy steps to be followed:

1. Open up http://gplus.to/.
2. Fill in two fields, the nick name that you wish in your Google plus profile and the Google plus numeric ID. 
3. As soon as you are done, Google plus will ask you to confirm the customized name that you've requested for. 
4. The verification will be done after you provide a phone number.
5. A verification code is will sent on the phone number and the URL will be confirmed.

Few things that are to be taken care of are:

1. There should be a profile picture.
2. There must be 10 followers.
3. The account should be 30 days old.

Some similar steps can be done for customizing Google plus page too. Be quick as Google may charge for custom URLs in future.

Advantages:

• No need to remember those long URLs for pages.
• While typing google.com/+something , Google will auto suggest the things.
• Branding is more easy.

Why you need a canonical tag?

"Duplicity" is the scariest word for website owners.

Duplicity can be of two types:

1. Internal duplicity: When the content within the website is duplicate or there are multiple versions of URLs existing (specially in case of e-commerce websites) 
2. Let's call it external duplicity: When you are lazy to write more and accidentally writes the website's content onto some other websites (like, company profile in linkedIn) or someone was lazy and copied your website's content onto his.

It was duplicate content which made Google to conceive Panda update. Panda target websites with poor, low quality content or duplicate content.

By now, many of you must have found a tool to check duplicate content, but for those who are searching, copyscape.com is the fantastic tool to check the duplicate content. Copyscape, shows the various websites having similar content as that of your website. 

While copyscape helps is tracing external content, how can you trace internal duplicity? Well, webmaster tools are the solution. Webmaster will not show you the duplicate content, it will show the duplicate meta tags (meta title and meta description). These details are available in "HTML Improvements" section. 

Now that you have tracked the internal duplicate content, what is the next step? Check why these pages are duplicate. You may notice there are pages where you tend to have same content over different pages. Such issues are faced by e-commerce websites. 

Let us understand with an example, say you sell shirts online, you decide to show 10 shirts on one page and make such 8 pages. For SEO purpose you add a small content in the end of the page. Now when crawlers crawl the website, they'll notice that the URL is changing from, http://myshirtsexample/shirts/page1 to http://myshirtsexample/shirts/page2 and so on up to 8 pages, but the content is same on all of the 8 pages, it raises the trigger, considering the content as duplicate. But in actual, the content is not duplicate and it is practically impossible to write content of 8 pages (or more pages). 

Let us take one more example, which is a general problem in every website. At times, the home page tends to have many versions of URL. www.mywebsite.com , www.mywebsite.com/index.html, mywebsite.com etc. In such cases too, crawlers will treat each version as different websites containing same content.

Now with the two examples above you have managed to track types of duplicity that are possible. Some are easily removed and for some other is the "canonical tag".

With help of canonical tag, you can notify Google that the content on these pages are not duplicate. The canonical tag looks like,

 <link rel="canonical" href="www.mywebsite.com" />

Let's understand, I'll put this tag in the head section of, www.mywebsite.com/index.html and mywebsite.com. This notifies Google that my original website is "www.mywebsite.com". 

For the shirts example, the canonical tag that Google has suggested is rel=”next” and rel=”prev”. Now about using it.

On the webpage http://myshirtsexample/shirts/page1, add the following canonical tag:

<link rel="next" href="http://myshirtsexample/shirts/page2" />

On second webpage http://myshirtsexample/shirts/page2, add following canonical tag:

 <link rel="prev" href="http://myshirtsexample/shirts/page1" />

<link rel="next" href="http://myshirtsexample/shirts/page3" />

Now there's may be a chance when you are changing the domain and some how 301 redirect is not possible, for such cases, Google supports, cross-domain rel="canonical" link element. Choose wisely.

Note:  

1. While Google can understand numbers of canonical tags on single website, Bing usually advice not to use too many canonical tags.
2. Choose canonical link wisely, the link that is put along it is the main link.
3. While using next, prev canonical use, next tag on first page, prev on last page and next and prev together on second-to-second last page.
4. Before using cross-domain canonical tag, try 301 redirects but if somehow it is not at all possible then go for cross domain canonical tag.

Now run Video ads on Facebook

With so many updates and hits, Google is disappointing marketers and making them work hard to get desired SERP; while Facebook is luring marketers with new ways to market with them.

Facebook has officially announced that:

1. Mobile apps can now have video ads. 
2. Pay for actions only

Video ads as per Facebook will increase the chances of more downloads of apps. Facebook suggested this as users can get a brief intro of the app that they are about to install on their phones. Great thought Facebook.

Earlier, the advertisers bid for their ads on basis of CPC (cost per click) or oCPM (optimized cost per impression). Facebook has introduced a new concept for advertisers, which they named as CPA (cost per action). According to CPA, the advertiser has to pay only for the number of downloads. To know more about CPA click here.

If you are running an app and want to try for these two new features proceed here. 

Original press release by Facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2013/10/21/get-efficient-installs-with-video-creative-and-cpa-buying-for-mobile-app-ads/

Types of sitemap and their importance

The SEO people must be knowing what sitemap is and how they are important. The two most important sitemap are, one, the .xml sitemap and the other sitemap for users. The other sitemaps are image sitemap, video sitemap and mobile sitemap.
Sitemap is basically a file that has all the links of the website (that you want search engines to crawl). Since all links are at one place it becomes easier for search engines to crawl every link that it might miss because of lack of internal linking in website.

Let's know bit more about them:

1. Sitemap: A usual sitemap is provided to users to help them to ease their navigation on the website. A sitemap should clearly define the links, the sub-parts of those links(if any). The best example of sitemap that I could find is http://www.apple.com/sitemap/ . Do visit and check the navigation.
2. XML Sitemap: XML sitemap is an .xml file that contains all the links of the website and this sitemap is submitted on Google and Bing webmaster. This sitemap eases the work of search engines.
   The code looks like
   <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
   <url>
           <loc>http://myexample.com/</loc>
           <lastmod>2013-10-17T07:06:03Z</lastmod>
           <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
           <priority>0.5</priority>
   </url>
   You can easily generate this sitemap by using online tool http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ . The steps are mentioned on the tool.
3. Mobile Sitemap: Now that mobile websites are in trend, having mobile sitemap is an intelligent move. The mobile sitemap can be submitted to webmaster for a better mobile website crawling. The code looks like
   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:mobile="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-mobile/1.0">
   <url>
           <loc>http://myexample.com/</loc>
           <lastmod>2013-10-18</lastmod>
           <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
           <priority>0.5</priority>
           <mobile:mobile/>
   </url>
   if you compare the two codes (normal sitemap and mobile sitemap), there are only two extra notations added, else it is just the same.
4. Image Sitemap: I have discussed about this sitemap in the Image Optimization post too. This sitemap is particularly for images. The image sitemap helps in getting images index faster. The code looks like:
   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
   xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1"
   <url>
          <loc>http://www.myexample.com</loc>
          <image:image>
               <image:loc>http://myexample.com/image.jpg</image:loc>
          </image:image>
          <image:image>
                <image:loc>http://myexample.com/photo.jpg</image:loc>
           </image:image>
     </url>
5. Video Sitemap: Video sitemap is helpful when there are lots of videos on website. There are number of fields that you need to provide some important details about the videos. Keep them handy so that you can quickly create a video sitemap.
   The important fields are:
        *Title
        *Description
        *Play page URL
        *Thumbnail URL
        *Raw video file location and/or the player URL (SWF) and some more.
   The code looks like:
   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
   xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
   <url>
           <loc>http://http://myexample.com/videos/video1_landing_page.html</loc>
           <video:video>
                <video:title>The title of video comes here</video:title>
                <video:description>Write a brief description about video here</video:description>
                <video:content_loc>http://myexample.com/video1.flv</video:content_loc>
                <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">http://myexample.com/videoplayer.swf?video=1</video:player_loc>
                <video:thumbnail_loc>http://myexample.com/thumbs/video1.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
   </url>
   </urlset>     
   

Important Points:

• You can add up to 50,000 URLs in single sitemap, if numbers increases then create two sitemaps with different names (like sitemap.xml and sitemap.1.xml).
• The file size should not be more than 50MB, if limit exceeds, again create two sitemaps.
• To ease your work, name sitemap like, mobilesitemap.xml, imagessitemap.xml, videositemap.xml
• If you carefully compare the codes discussed above, there is a declaration for every type of sitemap which is being created (mobile, video, image)
• Before submitting sitemap to Google webmaster, test the sitemap first and if there are no warnings or errors then proceed with submitting it, else remove errors and warning and then again test and then submit (if all goes well).

Important Links:

• To know more about XML sitemap read https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156184?hl=en&ref_topic=8476
• To  know more about special sitemaps read https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/20986?hl=en&ref_topic=8476

Few tips on Image optimization

"A picture says thousand words"

Many of you must have heard this famous saying. All of us know the importance of images. If you are running E-commerce website then importance of images is well known to you; Image optimization thus becomes an important task for you.
There are various factors that are important while optimizing an image, like, size, format(.jpeg, .png, .gif etc), file name, etc.

Let's discuss the the factors and know how to optimize the image:

1. Name of image: While you save the image on your computer and upload it on the website, make sure you are saving it with relevant name. Do a bit of keyword research so as to keep the best keyword as your image name. For example, the image that I've pasted below is saved on my desktop as "HID KIT Advantage"

   

   HID KIT Advantage

   Though HID KIT Advantage is not a keyword, but HID KIT is a keyword. Remember not to be a spammer.
   Saving by name makes it easier for you to understand the picture and upload it where it is exactly required. You will agree, the image by name "HID KIT Advantage" is better than "image001213" .
   
   CAUTION: DON'T MAKE YOUR IMAGE NAME TOO BIG TO UNDERSTAND OR TO READ. 
2. Alt Tag: Since search engines don't crawl images, they provide an alternative to crawl images which is called as "alt tag". The tag looks like
   <img source="/file.html" alt="Keyword here">
   Alt tag helps search engine to understand what image is there on your website. Another advantage of using alt tag is that if image is not loaded properly then the visitor can read the tag in place of that image and understand what image is there.
   TIP: If you are running e-commerce website and provide multiple angle images to user (side view, front view, rear view etc as commonly seen today), then make sure the alt tags are also changing accordingly.
3. Reduce file sizes of images: websites with large image takes more time to load and we all know "page speed" is an important factor for on page SEO. You can easily do this by selecting the option "save for web" option in Photoshop, this reduces your burden.
   ? don't have photoshop? You can go to pixlr.com. This is the best online tool that solves every kind of picture issues (like re-sizing, adding effects etc) This online tool works similar to that of photoshop.
4. File type: There are various file type, .jpg, .gif, .png etc. While saving images be careful what these formats can do to the images.
   .jpg: Good for small images, gives you best picture quality
   .gif: lower image quality, bad for large/complex images, good for icons or decorative type of images.
   .png: Better color quality then gif, file size may increase for large images(as compared to similar .jpg image).
   See the images below to understand the difference:
   

   

   Suv car fog lights GIF

   

   Suv car fog lights JPG

   

   Suv car fog lights PNG

   
     GIF image is blur, JPG is finest and PNG is ok.
5. Last one is to use image sitemap and submit it to Google webmaster for faster indexing of images.

The last image is the summary of what we learnt so far:

So what do you know about rich snippet?

You must have searched for recipes, reviews about a mobile phone or about some particular information like "Penguin update"; then you must have observed that there are ratings (stars), or information about author (their picture, their Google+ profile link etc).
The picture below can make a better picture in your mind

Did these things ever crossed your mind how does this all come from?
Yes, Rich Snippet is your answer. Now the thing is how to use it. This is quite easy, you have below mentioned available for this:

1. Visit schema.org and there find the most suitable snippet for yourself and apply it on your website/blog. 
2. If you have your hands tight with coding, Google webmaster has ease your task, use the "data highlighter" tool and provide the structured data to Google. As soon as Google indexes your website/ blog the meta tags will be added and provided by Google search results. 

Important links:

• To learn more about rich snippet, refer https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/99170?hl=en
• To check how the code given on schema.org will look like visit http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets