Image optimization is an essential process for your website. It is definitely worth the time spent. As a result, it can significantly speed up page loading, improve the perception of the site by search engines, and increase conversion. Today we will talk about how to optimize images on your site on your own without resorting to the help of specialists.
Choose the Right Image Format for Your Site
Before you upload images to your site, you must be sure that you have chosen the most suitable format. Now there are a large number of image formats, while PNG and JPEG are still the most common:
- Often such pictures have a higher quality and a larger size.
- Image quality may be lower, but it is easier to find a balance between quality and weight in such pictures.
Compress Images Before Publishing
Don’t aim for the highest quality images on your site. Such visual content can significantly slow down the loading speed of your pages. According to statistics, pictures on the site take up to 21% of the total “weight.”
Before publishing, it is essential to resize photos. It is more convenient to use online services rather than graphic editors. Often there, you just need to upload an image, select settings and save the finished result.
Most often, compression occurs in two formats – with loss of quality and without loss of quality. The first option is suitable if you compress the image as much as possible without paying attention to the visual component. In the second case, unnecessary metadata is removed. As a result, the quality of the picture itself practically does not change.
You can always test how the speed of loading your pages on the site has improved thanks to a simple Google PageSpeed Insights tool.
Add Unique Images to Your Site
Your site must be original and stand out from the competition. If you just load standard images on the pages used everywhere, there can be no question of originality. If you analyze several resources, you will notice that many are filled with the same photos taken from free photo stocks.
And while your image will be perfectly optimized, it will not affect your site if the content has already been used a million times elsewhere. A wholly different story about high-quality, unique images. Such pictures will appeal not only to your site visitors but also to search robots. You are much more likely to get into the TOP for relevant queries with them.
Do not Infringe Copyright
Regardless of which images you choose to use for your site, ensure you’re not violating anyone’s copyright. If you took a picture from Getty, Shutterstock, and DepositFiles stocks that have declared their copyright, soon, you would not develop your site but costly lawsuits.
You can always use the power of Google Images to sort out images you’re sure won’t violate anyone’s copyrights. Photo stocks like Unsplash and Pixabay are also suitable, where a lot of interesting paid content is posted.
The Title of Your Images is Important for Optimization
To improve SEO learning how to write the correct titles for your images is essential. It must be descriptive. Stock photos often have a name like “IMG_722019”. This is best avoided.
You can also add a title for the photo, which will be displayed in place of the picture if it fails to load due to a poor internet connection. This is a text to the view that explains what is shown. This parameter does not affect the optimization but improves the user experience. The latter involves the authority of the site in the search engine.
Don’t forget to include the Alt attribute. Alt is a kind of textual alternative to the image, written in the site code and intended for search engine robots. You should write keywords in Alt, which will help your site to move more actively to high positions in the search results.
Optimize Images for Mobile Devices
Never forget that most visitors will view your site from a mobile phone. A lack of proper optimization will result in a high bounce rate and low conversions. Good optimization will give you more ranking opportunities and provide a better user experience.
It is important to use responsive images. Such pictures will be automatically scaled depending on the size of the site and whether the user uses a computer or smartphone to view them.
We hope our material was helpful and will help you optimize images on your site. Pay attention to all of the above and not ignore specific points to achieve the best result.