Optimizing your images properly will help your SEO content and help it to rank higher in search results. Discover the important factors that you need to optimize your images for SEO
Let’s consider the last time when you uploaded an image to your website. I am sure you probably got it from a stock photography website, went to the backend of your website, and then placed it on the page.
However, this does not necessarily mean image optimization. In fact, this adds significant weight to your site, thus hindering its page loading speed.
The fact is that search engines cannot read your images if they don’t have alternative text.
According to 2018 statistics from Jumpshot, more than 20% of all U.S. web searches occur on Google Images. SEO experts and novices alike recognize that investing time into optimizing website images is well worth the effort. Neglecting proper image optimization is a squandered SEO opportunity.
Image optimization produces several advantages, including enhanced user experience, accelerated page loading times, and increased ranking opportunities.
But which factors are critical to ensure that your images are discoverable and don’t hinder your website’s performance?
We will see below 10 important image optimization tips you need to consider whenever you are uploading images into your content.
1. Make sure to choose the right image format
Images come in various file formats and sometimes it can be a little time-consuming to get the right file format for your images.
However, it is important to know the file format of an image before uploading it to your website.
There are a dozen of image formats available but when it comes to the web, the PNG and JPEG formats are the most common ones.
But for a fast-loading web page, I prefer to go with the WebP formats because they are lighter.
- PNG image files are the best when it comes to image quality. The only hick is that PNG files are much bigger than the rest.
- JPEG formats allow you to reduce the image size to an acceptable size but this will also reduce the quality of the image
- WebP is the new recommended image format by most browsers including Chrome and Firefox. They are compressed files that keep the image quality.
So for a fast-loading web page, I recommend choosing a PNG file and converting it into WebP format before uploading it to your page.
You can use software and plugins to get this done fast and for free
2. Compress the Images on your site
Image compression in simple terms can be defined as the process of reducing the size of the image while keeping the quality of the image.
Have you ever uploaded an image that wasn’t compressed? If you have, you know that it can really slow down your website.
It’s like trying to run a marathon with a backpack full of bricks. Did you know that images can make up about 21% of your web page’s weight? That’s a lot!
So, it’s crucial to compress your images before uploading them to your site. You can do this with tools like TinyPNG or Photoshop.
Personally, I prefer WP Smush, a WordPress plugin that reduces image file size without compromising quality.
Make sure to find a plugin that compresses images externally on their servers to reduce the load on your site.
And if you really want to take it to the next level, consider using an image CDN like Cloudinary or Imgix. These services can detect the device and optimize the image before delivery, resulting in faster page speeds.
If you want to know how your images are affecting your page speed, you can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to get a better understanding.
3. Always create unique images
If you want your website to stand out, avoid using too many generic stock photos. While stock photos may be easy to find and use, they can make your site look unoriginal and blend in with thousands of other sites.
For example, if you have a corporate website, a consulting firm, or a business that values customer service, using the same smiling businessman stock photo as other similar businesses won’t help you differentiate yourself.
Although you may optimize your stock photos, they won’t have the same impact as unique, high-quality images.
The more original pictures you have, the better the user experience and your chances of ranking higher in relevant search results.
Also, keep in mind that using large images can improve your chances of being featured on Google Discover.
4. Avoid Copyright Images
When choosing an image or your website, you have to make sure there is no copyright on them. Many companies are in trouble because they use copyrighted images in their business.
A typical example is that of the Postal Service which is paying $3.5 million in an image copyright lawsuit.
If you use an image owned by Shutterstock, Getty, or any other company without having the license to use it, You stand the risk of having an expensive lawsuit
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) empowers content owners to issue notices to individuals who have infringed upon their copyright.
If an owner discovers their content on your website, they may issue a DMCA Takedown notice which requires you to take down the content. Compliance with such notices is mandatory…
If you don’t know where to get free images visit here for a list of websites where you can download free images
5. Write a descriptive name of your images
Customizing the file name of the images on your site so that they match your keyword is very useful for Google and other search engines to understand what the image is all about.
Generally, when you post an image on your site, the file name may just look like “IMG_7220187”.
This does not help search engines to know what the image is all about. But if you change the file name from the default name to something that has to do with your content, this will help the search engines index and rank it in the search results.
As an example, Imagine I upload a smartphone image on my site and I rename it “smartphone” This is good but what if my website is about smartphones, all my images will be like smartphone-1, smartphone-2, etc…
When it comes to SEO, writing a descriptive name for your image is just as important as writing a meta description for your article.
Let’s say the image I uploaded is an iPhone 14 Pro with a black body. I will rather name the image “iPhone14 pro-black” This way, a search engine will quickly know the type of iPhone I have uploaded
6. Write SEO-Friendly Alt Text
Alt tags are a way to describe images on your website in case they don’t show up properly. When an image fails to load, you’ll see a box with the alt tag in the top left corner.
So, it’s important to make sure the alt tag fits with the image and describes it well.
Focusing on alt tags is also helpful for SEO because it helps search engines understand the content of the image. Google even thinks alt text is valuable for figuring out which image to show for a user’s search.
Alt text is also required by the American Disabilities Act to help people who can’t see images. So, it’s a good idea to write descriptive alt text that tells people what’s in the picture.
When it comes to SEO, descriptive alt text is better because it helps associate keywords with the image. You can even use alt text as the anchor text for a link to another page on your website.
Overall, using good alt tags makes your website more accessible and helps search engines understand your content better.
7. Consider the structure of the image file
So, Google updated its Image Guidelines, and they’ve made some important changes. One of the big things they mentioned is that they use the file path and file name to rank images.
What does that mean? Well, if you run an online store with lots of products, don’t just throw all your images into a boring /media/ folder. Instead, organize your subfolders to make more sense for your products.
For instance, put your shorts images in a /shorts/ folder and your denim images in a /denim/ folder.
This helps Google understand what your images are about and can improve your ranking.
8. Optimize Your Page Title & Description
Did you know that Google takes into account your page title and description when it searches for images? Yeah, it’s true!
According to a Google support page, everything that affects your regular SEO, like metadata, headers, page content, and structured data, also affects how your images are ranked.
It’s like building a burrito – you gotta add all the toppings to make it tasty. Adding all the necessary SEO elements is like adding guac to your burrito.
So, make sure to add all the right elements to boost your image rankings!
9. Define the image dimensions
If you’re using AMP or PWAs, you gotta make sure you define your image dimensions in the source code. But even if you’re not using either, it’s still a good idea to do it.
Why? Because it gives users a better experience and prevents the page from jumping around when it loads.
Here’s the deal: when you define the width and height of an image, the browser can size it before the CSS is loaded. This means your page won’t jump around and annoy your visitors.
And get this, defining image dimensions is also important for preventing Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) issues that can mess with your Core Web Vitals optimization.
By including width and height attributes for every image and video element, you tell the browser how much space to allocate for the resource. This stops annoying content from shifting and lowers your CLS score.
10. Make sure your images are mobile friendly
Mobile SEO can be a game-changer for your website. If you don’t optimize properly, it can lead to high bounce rates and low conversions.
But if you do it right, it can boost your ranking power and improve user engagement.
The challenge is optimizing your images for the mobile-first index. Fortunately, Google has some helpful tips on best practices for images.
In a nutshell, your images should be responsive, meaning they adjust to the size of the device whether it’s a desktop or mobile. This ensures a seamless user experience.
To achieve this, you can use the srcset and sizes attributes to provide the browser with additional source images that are resized for the device. Mozilla has a great guide on how to do this effectively. Learn more here
Conclusion
When it comes to optimizing images for your website, there are some key rituals you should follow to ensure that they are effective. First and foremost, it’s essential to ensure that the image and alternative text are relevant to the page.
In addition to this, there are some other important things to keep in mind:
- Choosing the right file format is crucial. Personally, I prefer PNGs for screenshots.
- Reducing the file size of your images can significantly improve page load speed, which is crucial for a positive user experience.
- It’s important to ensure that your on-page SEO elements, such as metadata and structured data, are optimized to pair effectively with your image.
- To ensure that your images are easily crawled by search engines, consider creating an image sitemap or including them in your existing sitemap.
Optimizing your website’s images is no laughing matter. With the increasing importance of media and voice search technology, taking the time to optimize your images can have significant benefits for your entire site.