Search engine optimization is an essential concept for those who intend to succeed in managing their websites. But there is always a tendency for website owners to mostly focus on building expensive websites and creating high-quality textual content while overlooking image optimization for better SEO rankings.
Well, this is wrong because image optimization is one of the many criteria considered by search engines for SEO purposes. Understanding image optimization best practices will stand you in good stead in today’s highly competitive business environment.
What Is Image Optimization for SEO?
Image Optimization for SEO is the utilization of a variety of measures or best practices for the purpose of making website images beneficial to the image uploader, his website, and visitors. Why is image optimization for SEO important? Image optimization is among the over 200 factors Google considers before ranking each website for a particular search query.
So with a well-optimized image, you are sure of better visibility and, hence, greater traffic on Google. Though higher traffic is the major reason you should optimize your website’s images, image optimization comes with several other perks, such as:
Enhanced Website Accessibility
Improved website accessibility is possible through some optimization steps. For example, adding alt tags to your website can make the site easier to navigate for surfers using screen readers. In a nutshell, better site accessibility is good for both site visitors and SEO.
Improved Website Speed
If you are into SEO, you should be aware of the importance of having a website with fast loading times. 39% of users will stop engaging with content if the images won’t load or the loading time takes too long. One thing capable of slowing down your website is a large, un-optimized, or improperly formatted image. So be sure to always optimize your images to enhance your ranking prospects while also making your visitors happier.
Greater User Experience
88% of visitors are less likely to return to a website after a bad user experience. Making a website easier to access and faster, correctly displayed, optimized images helps maximize the user experience (UX). For instance, large, un-optimized images can negatively impact on UX by covering either the whole screen or some of the page’s other elements.
Image Optimization Tips
Though some tend to wrongly see image optimization as one of those trivial SEO steps they can overlook, taking out time, energy, and even money to optimize your images can speed up your slow site, significantly boost your search engine rankings, and maximize the experience of your website’s users. Here are 8 image optimization tips for better SEO results:
1. Choose the Right Format
With so many file types out there, you must ensure you always choose the right image format because selecting the wrong file type may result in blurry images that can be problematic for visually challenged visitors. So which file type is most SEO-friendly? Though there is no universal right format for images, JPEGs and PNGs are considered the best file formats for SEO, so it’s no wonder they are the most popular image formats on the internet.
JPEGs can display millions of colors and are cool on any kind of device. However, they use lossy compression, which implies that they’ll lose some data when being compressed and are, therefore, not the best option for professional photography. They are rather ideal for blog posts and other internet uses.
Like JPEGs, PNGs can also be used on any kind of device. However, PNGs tend to be significantly larger and use lossless compression, meaning that there is no loss of data when they are compressed. While JPEGs ensure color preservation, PNGs help preserve background transparency in images.
When should I use either file? JPEGs are most suitable for those struggling with site speed since their smaller size tends to make things faster, and their image quality is not bad at all though not as good as in PNGs. If image quality is your priority as opposed to site speed, then go for a PNG format. They are ideal for logos, icons, and images that may require to be zoomed in, while JPEGs should be preferred for things like blog post images and screenshots, among others. Try to stick to the above file types as much as possible since other formats can slow down your site more.
2. Resize Images to Reduce Their Size
The image size of a digital graphic image is given in pixels. The size of an image is an indication of its dimension and resolution (width x height), for example, 4608 x 3072 pixels, 1920 x 1080 pixels, 1280 x 720 pixels, etc. The file size will determine the storage space required to save it. The bigger the image size, the more pixels the image contains, and the higher the resolution, the greater the space you need for storage (e.g., 1 MB, 24 bytes, 150 kilobytes, etc.).
The problem with large-dimension and high-resolution images is that they can slow down page load times significantly. Though such images are ideal when working with printed materials, you may have to optimize them by resizing or scaling down their file size when working on websites.
3. Compress Your Images
Digitally speaking, a compressed image file is simply a file whose original size has been reduced so that it can be easier to load on an internet site or store on a device. When properly done, image compression can achieve a perfect balance between image size and image quality. As hinted earlier, there are two types of image compression:
- Lossy compression
- Lossless compression
The main difference between both methods is that lossy compression (such as used in JPEGs) takes out some of the data, unlike lossless compression (such as used in PNGs), which keeps all the data. Hence, the compression method to use will be determined by the selected image format. The optimization golden rule here is to strike the right balance between size and quality. 67% of online shoppers say high-quality images are “very important” to their purchase decision.
Consider those who will view the image when deciding how much compression to apply or otherwise. Usually, blog post readers do not care much whether the featured images are small or not crispy clear, so long as they are visible. However, things can be quite different if you are sending your new logo to a client, for example. The logic is to choose the compression type according to the selected file format and choose the file format based on the purpose of using the image. Luckily, there are several tools (including WordPress plugins) you can use to compress all kinds of image formats.
4. Use Unique Images
Choosing stock images already in use by many other websites will leave you lacking the originality and SEO edge that a unique image will offer. Just like you tend to rank higher with unique textual content, unique images also have the potential to rank higher.
Several websites display the same generic stock images. No matter how perfectly you optimize such widely used stock images, they will not have the same effects or yield the same potential SEO benefits as an original, top-quality image. In other words, the more original your images are, the better the user experience and the greater the likelihood of achieving higher rankings on relevant searches.
5. Optimize the Image Title
Though directly uploading an image with the same default name as it is saved within a local file system may seem convenient, using images with their default names is not a recommended image optimization best practice. Why? When a search engine like Google crawls through a web page, one of the things it is interested in is the keywords in an image’s file name.
This means that the image file name is crucial when it comes to image optimization for SEO. Therefore, be sure to choose the appropriate keywords for your image file (but don’t stuff keywords!). You can even include a short CTA such as “download now” or “purchase today.”
In summary, image titles offer context for alt text and have the capacity to boost user engagement. They enable you to add a title that appropriately describes the image with the most relevant keywords.
6. Use Alt Tags
To better understand the content of an image, search engine spiders require information about the image. This information can be provided by the alternative text (alt-text) mechanism, thus making it possible for search engines to accurately index image content. When you include alt text alongside your image, Google and other search engines can easily read the alt text and rank your page, even if the image fails to load because of an error.
Apart from its importance for search engine optimization, alt-text also helps users who are visually impaired understand the image’s context. Be sure to include brand-relevant information in your alt text in addition to keywords with more detailed information than found in the file name. This can be achieved with between 10 to 15 words and without stuffing keywords.
7. Use an Image CDN
An image CDN (content delivery network) is specifically designed to store images and other media files. Image CDNs ensure a reduction in image payload while delivering images accurately to any devices that ask for them as well as instantly sending images from the network edge. They make page load speeds faster, boost SEO rankings, and help maximize the user experience.
Image CDNs function as APIs used to access and edit website images. Their main focus is image optimization, transformation, and delivery. The URLs of images obtained from image CDNs are a source of important information (e.g., the identity of the image to be imported and other parameters such as size, format, and quality). This information is vital because they make it easier to produce variants of an image for multiple uses.
The ability to create new versions of images on demand makes an image CDN distinct from an image optimization script used during build time. This quality makes CDNs more valuable than optimization scripts when it comes to generating highly personalized images to suit the demands of individual customers.
8. Beware Of Copyright
Copyright conflicts can be messy, distracting, and expensive. For example, following an image copyright lawsuit, the US Postal Service has been made to pay $3.5 million as a consequence of copyright infringement. The provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) make it possible for violators to be notified when they commit copyright offenses. For instance, if you display an image belonging to another source on your website without giving that source due credit, they can initiate a DMCA Takedown that you are legally bound to comply with.
