4 Ways To Optimize Images For SEO
The images on your website can have an enormous effect on the performance, speed and user experience, which can ultimately effect your SEO. This is why image optimization is so important. Here are our top 4 tips for optimizing the images on your website for SEO.
Select The Right Image
Use original images when possible, they are always the more authentic choice. For example: use actual images of your employees to represent them, as opposed to stock photos.
The image should reflect the topic of the post or page and have a purpose. Try to place the image near the relevant text (if applicable). An image with related text ranks better for the keyword it is optimized for.
If you can’t get your hands on original images, and stock photos are the only option, there are many great websites to source free images.
Give It A Relevant File Name
You’ll want to make the file name something to let the search engine know what your image is without even looking at it. And it’s a good idea to use your SEO keyphrase in the image file name. For example: if your image is of the Colorado Mountains, don’t use DSC467.jpg, go with colorado-mountains.jpg.
Scale & Reduce File Size
When it comes to website loading times, the faster the site, the easier it is for users to visit and search engines to index. Images can impact loading times, especially when you upload a huge image into the backend, but it’s going to display really small on the frontend. Be sure to resize the image to match the actual display size.
You also want to make sure your image is compressed to the smallest possible file size while maintaining it’s quality. You can do that by using handy tools like TinyPNG.
Add Alt Tags
Each image on your website should include an alt tag. The purpose of this is so there will be descriptive text in place if the image can’t be displayed or if a screen reader is being used due to visual impairment. The alt text ensures that no information or functionality is lost.
Make sure the alt tag consists of your SEO keyphrase for that page. Describe what’s in the image so both search engines and people can make sense of it. More relevant image information = search engines deem it important.
Use these image optimization tips as you are building your website, but don’t worry if it’s already live, it’s not too late! Images can be optimized anytime. We have many more tricks up our sleeve for SEO optimization, contact us for a free consult!
About the Author
Keri Stafford is Director of Marketing & Operations at Luminary Digital. She can find a reason to use a spreadsheet for just about anything and is so obsessed with content marketing that she won’t stop talking about it.
Tweet to Keri: @keristafford
