Do you ever worry about the images you add to your website, articles, or product pages on an e-commerce site? It turns out optimizing images for search rankings is just as important as other SEO improvements.
In today’s article, we take a look at some of the best practices that will help you ensure your images are properly optimized.
Aspects of an Image that Need Attention
1. Image size – The size of an image plays an important role in page speed or the amount of time it takes for a page to load(See largest contentful paint). It is important to keep your image sizes low while keeping the quality. There are some tools that you can use to compress an image, a common example being tinypng.com, a tool that reduces the image’s file without reducing its quality(lossless compression). You can also change the image format to something like WebP, which retains the image quality while giving a smaller file size.
2. Image Dimensions – Different pages on a website require different image dimensions. Sticking to the recommended sizes can help get your images to appear in SERPs. Featured images, for instance, use the dimensions 1200x630px(for most CMSs). Use tools like Canva to get the right image dimensions for different platforms or sections of a website.
Having images with the same dimensions ensures uniformity across different pages on a website.
3. Image file names and alt(alternative text) – When users enter search queries on search engines like Google, all results, including images, are displayed. This happens after bots crawl the internet for relevant resources that match the “keyword” entered. If you want your website images to appear on SERPs, ensure you optimize the images properly by giving your image files a name that includes your main keyword before uploading them to the website and adding alt text to the image once uploaded.
Alternative text helps make your image more descriptive and can assist your content viewers in understanding what the image is about in cases where they have a poor network or if your image file is big and takes time to load.
4. Image background – This might sound like a less significant aspect, but it does play a role in both layout and speed of a webpage.
An image with a background is more likely to be of a bigger file size than one without. Google, the most popular search engine, recommends having a white or transparent background on all your images.
There are free tools like remove.bg that help you quickly remove an image background and download it without a watermark. The downside of this tool’s free version is that you are only able to download a fixed dimension of the image generated by the website.
Canva provides the background removal functionality, but only on the paid plan. If you asked, I would say the pro version of Canva is worth trying.
It gives you multiple design capabilities including image upscaling(for low-quality images), background removal, and cropping, among other functionalities.
Using these tips can help get your images optimized and ranking high on search engine results pages. It will also improve your website load speed, giving visitors a better experience.
One of the items that appears on the SERP(Search Engine Results Page) of a search engine like Google is the images. When you type any search keyword on Google and go to the second tab, you will find images.
These images are usually properly optimized using relevant keywords.
Images can enhance your website’s content and boost your search engine rankings if optimized correctly. Here’s how you can ensure your images contribute to SEO success:
How to Optimize Images for Search Engine Ranking
Use Descriptive File Names
Before uploading an image, rename the file to something descriptive. For example, instead of IMG1234.jpg, use seo-tips-and-tricks.jpg. This helps search engines understand the content of your image.
Add Image Alt Text
Alt text describes the content of an image for search engines and visually impaired users. Use clear and concise language to include relevant keywords. For example: “A community building project in Uganda.” In cases where the image is heavy or the network is poor, image alt texts can help the page visitor understand what the image on a page is about before the page fully loads.
Compress Images
According to research, over 60% of users abandon a website that does not load within 3 seconds(Thinkwithgoogle). Large image files can slow down your website, affecting both user experience and rankings. Use tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim(for Mac) to reduce file size without losing quality.
Choose the Right Format
Use the best format for your images:
-JPEG for standard images.
-PNG for images with transparency.
-WebP for faster loading times without sacrificing quality.
Use Captions and Context
Add captions below your images to provide context. Search engines also consider the surrounding text when indexing images. Apart from being used by search engines, your users will find it easy to understand what an image is about.
Create an Image Sitemap
An image sitemap helps search engines discover all your images. This is especially helpful if your site relies heavily on visuals. Learn more about image sitemaps here
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