Unless you have been living entirely offline the past few years, you must have heard of the term SEO. Did you know know that 51 percent of traffic comes from people performing organic searches?
While many people are focused on having the right keywords and reputable links, many neglect their images. Having optimized images on your website is key for a successful SEO campaign.
If you’re wondering how your images can help you boost SEO results, you came to the right place.
Read on to learn how to optimize web page images to improve your SEO results.
1. High-Quality Images
If you’re serious about optimizing your images to improve your SEO results, you need to ensure all of your images are high-quality. To include high-quality photos on your website, you can try to take better photos, use stock photos, or use graphic-based images.
Shoot High-Quality Photos
You don’t have to be a professional photographer to shoot high-quality photos. With only a few tips, you can take your photography skills to the next level.
Shoot in RAW Format: By shooting in RAW format, you will be able to take photos without compression, which means exposure, temperature, lighting, or other factors won’t affect the composition of your photos.
If you shoot your photos RAW, you will be able to adapt them in a JPG, PNG, and other formats.
Rule of Thirds: If you want to take high-quality photos, you should think about the rule of thirds. By using the rule of thirds, you will take images with a better composition.
You should use the 3×3 grid setting on your camera or phone when taking the photo. The center focus of your photo should fall at the intersection of any of the nine blocks of the frame.
By having everything in the middle, you will balance any of the white space. It will also give you the opportunity to crop it later on.
Use a Tripod: If you want to take better photos, you should always use a tripod. Even if you have a steady hand, any shift can mess with the quality of your image.
Stock Photography
When you can’t shoot the photograph yourself, you can always resort to stock photography on your website. You can either download free stock photos or pay for a service. Some great stock photo services include Pixabay, Unsplash, Barn Images, SplitShire, and more.
Make sure you always download the stock image using the largest JPEG file possible. Once you upload it on your website, you can adjust the size, but you should start with a large and high-quality file.
Graphics
Some websites like to mix photography with graphics to improve their SEO results. By using infographics or original photography with font overlays, you will be able to give the images a boost.
2. Resize Your Images
One way to step up your image optimization is by resizing the images appropriately. As far as website images go, you need to find the right balance between resolution and size.
For the most part, the larger the size, the better the image resolution will be. However, if you upload large image files on your website, it could hurt more than help.
If the image file is too large, it will slow down your website. The longer it takes for your website to load, it will hurt the user experience.
On average, users expect websites to load in 3 seconds or less. The last thing you want is to lose users because your website takes too long to load.
Optimal Image File Size: If you have a 16MG image, it will take longer to load. However, a 120KB image will load faster on your site.
When you have a really large image file, it’s an indicator the dimensions of the image are too large or the resolution too high.
Image Size: You measure the dimensions of an image in pixels. To make sure your images are the right size, make sure your photos fall in the 795 x 300-pixel ballpark.
It’s easy to resize your images when they’re too large for the web. For example, if an image is 5000 pixels, you can resize to fit the needs of your website.
Image Resolution: Image resolution refers to the density and quality of the image, which gets measured in dots per inch (dpi). You can automatically reduce the resolution of your images by making saving them for the web.
If you use Photoshop, there is an option to save the image as a web-friendly file.
Optimal Image Size, File Size, and Image Resolution
To ensure your website images are always the appropriate image size, file size, and resolution, you should follow these rules:
- Keep website graphics to 300 KB or less
- Full-screen and background images should be lower than 1MB
- Keep your large images to 2000 pixels wide or less
- Use the “save for web” option when available
Keep these rules in mind, and you will make the images on your website work more effectively.
3. Adjust the File Types
If you want to improve your image optimization game to improve your SEO results, you should use the right file types. Between JPG, PNG, SVG, and GIF files, it can be difficult to know which one to use for your images.
JPG Files: JPG is the right file type for photographs. You should save all of your photographs under the JPG sign since it’s compatible with all of the colors and sizing.
If you use JPG, you don’t have to worry about ending up with a large file that your website can’t handle.
PNG Files: You should use PNG files to save infographics, designs, logos, and images with a lot of text. It’s important you save these files under PNG since these files are better quality than JPEGs.
PNG files maintain the quality of the text, color, and the crispness of the lines. If you zoom in a PNG file, you will not lose any quality.
You will be able to switch between PNG to JPEG without losing any quality. However, if you switch from a JPEG to a PNG, you won’t gain extra quality.
4. Keep Images Cohesive
One way to boost your image optimization if by having a cohesive image theme. If you want to improve the optimization of your images, make sure you keep a consistent style throughout your website.
Not only should you keep your images the same size and style, but your text, columns, and other information should also stay consistent.
If you have images that are different sizes and orientations, it will be really distracting for your users. For example, rather than have squares and rectangles, you can crop all of your images into squares.
By sizing all of your images into squares, you will make your website look clean and cohesive.
5. Name Your Images for SEO
When it comes to SEO, most people think about the importance of keywords, internal links, and backlinks. However, not many people think about the name of their image files.
To give your SEO results a boost, you should focus on the file names of all of your images. You must avoid any of the following file names, “image2.jpg,” “scan99330,” or “screenshot838.” Not only are these names confusing when you try to find an image, but they don’t help your image optimization purposes.
Keep these things in mind when naming your images:
The name of the file should be relevant: Before you name your image files, think about what the image wants to show you. Is it a landscape? Is it an object? Is it a portrait?
Don’t overstuff keywords: Don’t think of your image files as an opportunity to stuff keywords. For example, if you’re a fashion photographer, you never want to name your image file, “best-fashion-photographer-chicago-high-fashion-photoshoot.jpg.”
Not only is this name ridiculous and confusing for your purposes, but it will not win you points with Google. Instead, name your file, “high-fashion-photography-chicago.jpg.”
Keep it short and simple: As a rule of thumb, you want to keep your image file names to 5 words or less. Aside from keeping it to only a few words, you should separate each word with a hyphen.
6. Don’t Forget About Alternative Text
Even though your users won’t be able to see the alternative text you use on your images, you should still fill out this information.
Search engine crawlers will pay attention to the alternative text on your images when they calculate your rating.
The alternative text will give search engines a better idea of what the image is about. Make sure you describe what the image shows, and you also use the keywords.
Another reason why you need to work on your ALT tags is to facilitate the search for individuals with disabilities. The American Disabilities Act requires the use of this text for individuals who can visually find or see these tags.
You want to be as descriptive as possible to facilitate those using audio-based software.
Follow these rules when creating ALT tags:
- Keep ALT tags to 125 characters or less
- Use your keywords in your ALT tags
- Don’t force your ALT tags just for SEO purposes
Keep these tips in mind when creating your ALT tags. Use the example below as a guide for how to format your alternative text.
Take this alternative text:
And transform it into:
While this is a simple example, you get the idea of how to format your alternative text.
7. Think of the Placement of Your Images
As you upload images on your website, think about their placement. You can’t just place images randomly on your website.
Images shouldn’t come out of the blue; otherwise, you will ruin your SEO results. Only place relevant images next to relevant text that fits the subject matter.
You wouldn’t place the photo of a ski lodge in a blog post about a vacation in the Bahamas.
8. Get Creative With Your Images
As much as we’ve discussed having the right file format, size, and dimensions, having creative images is just as important.
There are many websites filled with generic stock images, so you have to make sure your photos stand out.
Even if you run a corporate business, you can afford to have more creative photos.
9. Keep Copyright in Mind
The last thing you want is to have a copyright issue with any of the images you use. If you’re going to use an image from Getty, DepositFiles, Shutterstock makes sure you have a license to use it.
Using an image another party owns without a license could result in an expensive lawsuit.
If a third party catches you using an image they own without a license, they will notify you. According to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the affected party can issue you a notice to inform you of the copyright infringement.
You must comply with their wishes if you want to avoid a lawsuit.
10. Make Images Mobile-Friendly
On average, 72% of people use their smartphones to search the web. If you’re going to optimize your images and improve your SEO results, you need to make your photos mobile-friendly.
If you don’t make your images mobile-friendly, you will lose visitors and have low conversion rates.
Make sure you create responsive images that will adjust to a desktop or a mobile device.
This Is How to Optimize Web Page Images for Better SEO Results
Now that you know how to optimize web page images for better SEO results, you’re ready to take your website to the next level.
Start by making your images mobile-friendly, always use ALT text, adjust file sizes, resize your images, and use high-quality photos.
Also, if you’re going to use stock images, keep copyrights in mind.
Are you ready to take your website optimization to the next level? We can take care of that for you. Contact us today for a free consultation.
