Your content has the best chance of succeeding with SEO if you comprehend the fundamentals of Image SEO Optimization
Images are crucial for SEO as well as increasing the usability, appeal, and engagement of your content for users.
Image optimization – what is it?
In order to improve user engagement, photos must be produced and delivered in the best possible format, size, and resolution. In order for search engine crawlers to read photos and grasp page context, it also entails appropriately identifying them with metadata.
Images take more bytes than any other component of the website, and according to HTTP Archive, in 2018 they took up 21% of the weight of an average web page. This percentage is likely to have increased as picture use has increased recently. As a result, site speed is significantly impacted by image size and complexity.
The user experience and website load times both increase when you can minimise the size of photos without sacrificing quality. This may help increase search engine rankings, which in turn raises consumer engagement, conversions, and retention rates.
TIP: Optimized photos use less server storage, site backups are finished more rapidly.
10 Techniques For Image SEO Optimization
1. Image resizing
The file size is not the same as the image size. Image dimensions are referred to as image size (e.g., 1024 pixels by 680 pixels). The file size is the storage space (e.g., 350 kilobytes).
Higher resolution and larger-sized images will significantly slow down the loading of your page. They should be scaled down and sized for the web even though they are effective for printed products.
TIP: To determine the ideal image sizes for social media networks, consult this guide.
Save appropriate format
Every one of PNG, JPEG, and GIFs has advantages. For photographs with a lot of color, I advise using JPEG, and for straightforward images, PNG.
Select the appropriate compression ratio
To determine which compression rate and file type are best for each image, experiment. A save-for-the-web option is available in several image editing programs, including Adobe Photoshop, that automatically reduces the file size while enhancing image quality.
If you don’t use Photoshop, these tools and plug-ins can help:
Image optimization tools
- Affinity Photo
- FileOptimizer
- Gimp
- ImageOptim (Mac only)
- JPEG Mini
- Kraken (bulk compression)
- Photopea
- Pixlr (JPEG optimization)
- OptiPNG
- Trimage
WordPress plug-ins for image optimization
Test speed
How can you determine whether the page load times for your website are quick enough after you’ve optimised your images? Test the speed of your website with one of these tools:
TIP: If the information on your website changes frequently, keep an eye on the load times.
2. Improve file names for images
To maximize SEO potential, give the file a name that contains pertinent, elaborative keywords. Include the target keywords at the start, and use hyphens to separate them. Avoid using underscores because they prevent search engines from “seeing” the words independently.
Both humans and search engines should be able to understand the file names. Rename images with descriptive titles, such as woman-having-a-haircut-in-a-salon.jpg, if the original name for an image of a woman at a hair salon is salon234.jpg.
3. Use alt tags
While viewers might comprehend the visual, search engine spiders want hints. Search engines can’t accurately index your image content without replacement text.
A good alt tag provides context and helps visually impaired users too. It’s also helpful when a glitch prevents an image from loading because search engines can read the alternative text to inform the page’s ranking. Write an alt tag in more detail than the file name. Aim for 10 to 15 to convey something about the image. An effective alt tag offers context and benefits people who are blind. The fact that search engines can read the alternative text to determine the page’s ranking is particularly beneficial when a bug stops an image from loading. The alt tag should contain more information than the file name. Aim for 10 to 15 to adequately describe the image.
TIP: To increase visibility, include brand-relevant terms in the alt tags, but avoid cluttering the tags with keywords.
4. Create mobile-friendly images
Crawlers primarily examine a site’s mobile version because Google’s algorithm uses mobile-first indexing. As a result, your photographs ought to be compatible with mobile devices. How? The quickest response is to make sure your website’s images and layout are mobile-responsive.
Although some website builders and layouts automatically scale photos, you can customize an image’s size based on the width of a device. Add some customized CSS code to your website to accomplish this. For more information on how to make your photos responsive, see this short guide.
5. Optimize the image title
WordPress typically uses the file name to determine the image’s title. To edit it with the required keywords in the same way as file names, if you don’t use WordPress or the title doesn’t describe the image, do so.
Although they are less significant for SEO, image names can help the alt text by adding more context. Consider including a brief call to action like “purchase now” or “download today” in the image title to increase user interaction.
6. Include captions
Image captions, or the text immediately below photos, could not have an immediate influence on SEO. However, captions are visible and can enhance the website experience in contrast to file names and alt text. Enhancing user experience and engagement metrics can indirectly improve SEO with the addition of captions.
7. Use original photos
Using stock photos is acceptable, but since many other websites probably do the same, they won’t necessarily improve your search ranks. Similar to how original textual content is better for SEO, it makes sense to upload original photos.
8. Make sure the text matches the photos.
If your language doesn’t provide enough details to explain an image, increase the description to help search engines identify the relevance of your photographs.
9. Include organised image data
To discover how to add structured data to your pages while staying within search engine criteria, use Google’s general principles for structured data.
10. Use site maps
In order to inform Google and other search engines about how your site’s material is organized, Google defines a site map as “a file where you can list the web pages of your site.” In other words, it’s a file that includes a map of the material on your website.
Site maps are a crucial component of SEO since they inform search engines about the pages and organizational structure of your website. Include them in your site map to make sure that infographics, memes, photos, video thumbnails, and other types of images are seen by search engine crawlers.
Include the title, description, URL, caption, and license details for each image entry. Include the title, description, location URL, thumbnail URL, and URL to the raw video file for video entries.
You can utilize Yoast SEO, which automatically adds visual material to a site map if your website is hosted on WordPress.
Conclusion
So, what are your next steps? The main thing to focus on is creating quality content. Images are an important part of that, no matter what the topic is. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the author: Rohan Babbar. Thank you for reading, we hope this blog was helpful!
Please mention any tools you may know of in the comments section 🙂
