The most common mistake businesses make in their digital marketing strategy is not paying attention to the images they use on their website. Image optimization is a vital part of on-site optimization, also known as on-page optimization. Applying the right set of rules to the images you upload to your website can help improve your ranking.
Here are different ways to optimize your website images from us at Cybertegic, the top marketing agency in Pasadena:
- Name each photo you upload on your website.
- Add alt attributes to your images.
- Reduce your image file size.
- Choose the right file type.
- Optimize the thumbnails.
- Use image sitemaps.
- Use CDN to load the pictures quickly.
1 – Name each photo you upload on your website.
While it’s easy to upload product shots in their default names, it doesn’t help your SEO strategy.
Take time to name each photo you upload on your website descriptively. You can use relevant keywords in your image’s file name to help rank your web pages on search engines. Keep in mind that search engines don’t only crawl the text on your page but also the image file names.
Look for keyword patterns your customers use. Determine the most common naming patterns and use them to name the related image file.
2 – Add alt attributes to your images.
Alt attributes are text alternatives for images that show when a browser can’t upload them properly. Another use for alt attributes is vital for web accessibility. Even after the image is rendered on the browser, the alt attribute text should show if you hover your mouse over the image.
Image alt attributes also contribute to the SEO value of your website. Search engine bots also crawl and index alt attributes in your web pages. So make sure to add the appropriate alt attributes to your images. If possible, add relevant keywords to help rank your web pages better on search engine results.
3 – Reduce your image file size.
Images with large file sizes take too much time to load. In fact, it can significantly affect the page speed of your website tremendously. Google, in fact, considers page load time as a ranking factor in its search engine algorithm.
To help improve the page speed of your website, you can decrease the size of the photos you upload to your website. According to marketing experts, a good rule of thumb for image file size should be below 70 KB.
4 – Choose the right file type.
The most common file types used online are JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Here is the difference between the three image file types:
- JPEG – is the most common file type found on the internet. It can be compressed for small file sizes. However, the more you compress the image to a smaller file size, the lower the quality of the image gets.
- PNG – delivers a better image quality compared to the other two. PNGs can support more colors than GIFs, and their quality doesn’t degrade even after several re-saves, unlike JPEGs. However, the downside of PNG images is that they have large file sizes.
- GIF – are great for plain and simple pictures. However, they use few colors and are often used for animated images. You can’t use GIFs for more complex and larger photos as well.
The best file type for images is JPEG, especially for eCommerce websites. They can provide the best quality for smaller file sizes. If there are existing PNG or GIF images on your website, convert them into JPEG files and reupload them.
5 – Optimize the thumbnails.
Most websites use thumbnails for their eCommerce sites, especially on their category pages. Thumbnails help websites showcase their products without taking up too much space.
While they may be great for navigation, they can affect the speed of your page load, which can cause you to lose customers.
So when it comes to thumbnails, make their size as small as possible. You also need to add alt attribute texts to your thumbnail images, but make sure not to duplicate these texts.
6 – Use image sitemaps.
Uploading image sitemaps is a great way to help the images on your website to be crawled and indexed by Google. Technically, search engine bots can’t crawl images. Instead, they use unique webpage source code provided by an image sitemap, helping search engines crawl all the photos on your website.
But before you upload your image sitemap, you need to follow Google’s guidelines. You can also use Google sitemaps to provide information to Google about the images on your website.
7 – Use CDN to load the pictures quickly.
You can use content delivery networks (CDNs) for images on your website to load faster. They are the perfect tool you can use to host images and other media files on your website. CDNs will also help increase the page load speeds and fix any bandwidth issues you have.
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If you want to further improve the page speed of your website by optimizing its elements, Cybertegic can help you. We have years of experience in website development to help businesses create websites that boost their sales and help grow their business.
