How to optimize your images for SEO
Optimize your images

How to optimize your images for SEO

Optimize your images for SEO can be VERY beneficial for the SEO of your site. In fact, the images are key elements on a website, both the user experience only for natural referencing. According to a Hubspot study, pages containing images get 94% more views than those not containing any.

However, most webmasters neglect the optimization of their images in SEO. Unsuitable format, excessive weight, bad naming, hollow captions... So many errors that harm the indexing of images and slow down the loading of pages. Properly optimizing your visuals can help you gain positions in search results and significantly improve the user experience. But where start when you are new to SEO?

In this article, discover all best practices to optimize your images effectively in SEO. From choosing the format to writing captions to compression, you will know exactly how to proceed to make your visuals user-friendly for both search engines and Internet users. Here we go!!!

Strategies for optimizing website images

Choose the right format

The format of your images has an impact on their indexing and loading speed. For the pictures, JPEG is recommended. This format allows you to compress the weight of images while maintaining good visual quality. For optimal referencing, the choice of the format of your images is essential. Search engines cannot "see" the content of the images, but analyze certain technical signals to better identify them.

Generally speaking, prefer vector formats (SVG), which offer very high image quality and a reduced file size. For photos, JPEG remains the standard, but remember to find the best possible ratio between quality and file size. The PNG format is useful for keeping bright colors on logos or flat illustrations. But be careful, a PNG will weigh two to five times more than an equivalent JPEG!

the WebP format invented by Google offers photos of similar quality to those of a JPEG for up to 30% lower weights. Its growing adoption makes it a must in the medium term, especially since recent browsers already support it. By choosing the most suitable format for your images, you will reduce their loading time and facilitate their analysis by robots, gaining a few precious places in the mobile ranking!

Also be sure to optimize the size of your JPEG files by adjusting the compression rate. A weight less than 100 kb a thumbnail and 500 kb for an image in an article is a good ratio. Feel free to use the Imagify plugin to optimize your images.

Improve your SEO
imagify

Imagify

  • Make your website faster with Imagify. It only takes one click to resize, compress and convert your images into WebP and Avif.

Name your files correctly

Naming your images also plays a role for SEO. The file name should ideally include the main keyword you are targeting, without spaces or special characters. For example photo-paysage-montagne.jpg or logo-company.png. This helps search engines understand what the image is about. Absolutely avoid names like img825.jpg which provide no SEO value. A number before the extension is however recommended to distinguish two images on the same subject. Put together, the keyword + number form the ideal file name.

Optimize dimensions

Beyond the format, cut your images to the exact dimensions that will be displayed on the web pages to avoid the extra weight linked to automatic reduction. A too heavy image being resized by the browser significantly slows down the loading of the page. But the loading speed is a key factor in natural referencing, particularly on mobile.

Also remember to prepare several versions of your main visuals with dimensions suitable for the retina (x2), a tablet or mobile display. Responsive design requires resized images anyway. Finally, avoid if possible parallax and scrolling effects horizontal/vertical requiring very large images, in favor of standard formats for the web (800-1000 pixels wide).

Native images with the perfect dimensions for their location will ensure lighter and better-ranked pages, especially on mobile local queries. It is important to resize your images to the size that will be displayed on the website. No need to leave a picture 3000x4000 pixels if she is inserted in 500x300 px in an article. This would only make the page unnecessarily heavy. Ideally, limit the width of your images at 1200 pixels for web display. Resizing is easily done with a photo editor. Don't forget to also reduce the dpi resolution to reduce weight. A 72 dpi resolution enough for the web.

Write your captions well

The ALT tag (“ alternative text ") is an HTML attribute that allows you to associate a textual description with an image on a web page. This text will be displayed especially if the image cannot be loaded correctly. For natural referencing, the content of this ALT attribute is cruciaL. This is because search engines cannot analyze the visual content of an image. They therefore rely on this textual description to understand the subject of the image and its interest in relation to the content of the page.

images

The ALT attribute must therefore include the file name of the image, which is generally enriched with 1 or 2 relevant keywords describing its content. Example : " mountain-hiking.jpg " bECOMES " hiker in the mountains ". Be careful, however, not to overload this attribute to preserve its value. Between 15 and 20 words maximum is a good compromise.

To go further, you can also fill in the “ Title » (Description in some interfaces) when you insert an image on a page. This allows you to write a real legend, more detailed and understandable by visitors. Don’t hesitate to place secondary keywords related to the image and surrounding content.

Compress your images

Image compression can significantly reduce their weight while maintaining a suitable visual quality. On a website, lightweight visuals speed up page loading and improve the user experience. There are easy-to-use tools to compress an already optimized image to the right format (PNG, JPG, WebP, etc.). The weight of an image can be decreased by 40 to 80% depending on its type and initial complexity.

However, overly aggressive compression degrades quality to the point of generating unsightly pixelation. Find the right quality/weight ratio by testing different compression levels for each format. By reducing the size of your images in good proportions, you will satisfy both visitors with faster pages and search engine robots, which particularly appreciate this performance gain.

Insert your images into articles

Finally, to give maximum SEO value to your images, consider inserting them into your blog posts. Beyond optimizing the images themselves, integrating them into blog posts is also a significant SEO factor. Indeed, when an image is placed at the heart of an article, it directly inherits its authority in terms of referencing. It is then much more likely to appear in the image results than if it is isolated or only integrated into the home page.

In addition, the text surrounding the image allows search engines to better understand its context and therefore index it more easily on queries corresponding to the keywords of the article. By taking the time to insert your flagship visuals into relevant editorial content, you optimize both their contextual SEO and that of the targeted articles.

Why optimize your images

If you want your site to be chosen by Internet users, pay attention to these 6 key aspects for the user experience on a modern website. But to start, here is a complete training that will allow you to have an explosive conversion rate on your website.

1. Accessibility

Consumption through smartphones and tablets is on the rise. It is a reality that in the early days of e-commerce, people preferred to buy through computers because it gave them a more complete view of all the actions that had to be performed to complete the conversion.

This changed many years ago with the emergence of smartphones. Today, most people surf the internet using mobile devices. That is why having a responsive website becomes essential. Having a responsive or adaptive site makes it more flexible when accessing or navigating the page. That is, the design adapts to any device, which improves accessibility.

images for SEO

2. Browsing mode

Navigability is essential to user experience. If users enter a complicated site where they can't easily find what they're looking for, they leave without doing anything. On the other hand, if the page is intuitive, it does not require any additional effort to make the conversion. For your site to be easily navigable, it must have a simple and visible main menu. It applies the textual path that each user takes so that they know where they are. It is also recommended to limit the navigation options, if you go too far you can lose the browsers.

3. First, simple

When you create your site, you want it to be the most complete in the world so the main intention is to put everything you find when customizing it. This is a big mistake. Pages that contain a lot of visual information are often busy and complicated for users. So they leave, which increases the bounce rate. Instead, you should think about simplicity, but above all, simplicity.

4. Don't think about yourself, think about the user

User experience, as we said before, are the measures taken based on a previous analysis. It is essential that before carrying out any action, you analyze what are the needs of the people who enter your site, what are their preferences and how you can facilitate the action for them. To find the best options that make your site user-friendly, it is advisable to carry out A / B tests. That is, two possible scenarios are developed to visualize which one is more chosen or easier to use.

5. Follow the main style

It is important that when you create the website, you follow a style throughout the site. If you use two fonts on the initial page with a certain color, and on another landing, you use different topographies with other colors, they will look like different sites. You must follow a style correlation to be able to reinforce the brand image. This consistency is essential so that users do not feel lost when navigating the site.

6. Provides security and trust

Users, in order to perform actions, share data or achieve a conversion, need to be sure that your site is malware-free and that their data is protected. Cyberattacks are common on pages that are not secure, which is why you should consider getting SSL certification, to take care of your site and the data of those who enter it.

At the same time, you bring credibility because this certification guarantees that you are a real company. As you can see, providing a good user experience is not as complicated as it seems. If you take these key aspects into account and take the right steps, you can be one of those sites that stand out and are chosen time and time again by users.

Conclusion

Images are essential elements of an SEO strategy, when we know that they represent more than 50% bytes uploaded to a website. However, search engines cannot analyze their visual content. Technical optimization (format, weight, dimensions) and semantic (ALT and Description tags) images is therefore essential for good SEO. Visuals that are quick to load, well named and captioned will help robots to better reference them according to the keywords of the pages where they appear.

Above all, by taking the time to insert your master images within targeted blog articles, you offer them a fantastic springboard. Inheriting the authority of the content, they will appear more easily in searches images and associated keywords. An SEO strategy also based on optimized images will save you precious time in the quest for visibility on the most competitive queries.

FAQ

Why optimize your images for SEO?

Images often account for more than half of the bytes downloaded on a page. Optimized images improve performance and indexing of pages by search engines.

Which image format should be preferred for SEO?

Vector formats (SVG) are ideal, but JPEG is suitable for photos. WebP (Google) and JPEG 2000 are emerging formats offering good weight/quality compromises.

How to reduce the weight of your images?

By choosing the right format and then compressing the images without excessive loss of visual quality. You can also resize your images to the exact display dimensions.

Should you optimize the names of your images?

Yes, it is recommended to include keywords related to the content of the image in its file name for SEO. Ex: electric-car-tesla.jpg

How to improve the indexing of your images?

By filling in an ALT tag and a Description field (title) with keywords that precisely describe the image, you guide robots in their indexing.

Where to place your images for better SEO?

At the heart of blog articles optimized for certain keywords. The image then benefits from the authority of the surrounding content and is better positioned in searches. This other one may interest you: how to find relevant keywords

I am a Doctor in Finance and an Expert in Islamic Finance. Business consultant, I am also a Teacher-Researcher at the High Institute of Commerce and Management, Bamenda of University. Group Founder Finance de Demain and author of several books and scientific articles.

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