Google Image SEO Tips

Image SEO: How to Optimize Images for Search Engines?

Images are the most important aspects of your website after text content. Do you know that you can optimize images on your website to have better organic visibility of your website? The majority of website owners tend to sideline image optimization and that’s where they make a mistake they shouldn’t be making.

Here are some of the quick image SEO best practices that you should follow to have better visibility of your website:

Cut on the size

The size of the images you use in article/blog posts or website pages directly impacts the speed at which your website loads. The bigger the file size of your images is, the slower your website will be in its load time.

Ask your web designer to cut off the additional size. If you have no specific reasons, avoid using PNG format as the file in this format tends to have a bigger file size. If you are using JPG formats, save them at the quality level that does not make a noticeable difference in the image quality. Saving images at a 60% quality level saves much on space without compromising on the quality.

You can also reduce the file size by reducing the image dimensions to the required level only. For instance, if it’s not necessarily required to have the dimensions of 5000x3000px, reduce it to 2500x1500px, 1000x600px, or lesser?

Mind the file name

The names that you give to your image files are really very important. It is decisive for their ranking in image searches. The best practice is to have the names describe the content of the image. But make sure that the names are not unnecessarily long.

You can also use your keywords in the image file names, however, they should go well with the content of images. There’s a difference between the justified use and over-stuffing or spamming. Be aware of that.

  • Avoid generic filenames like “photo1.jpg”, “image1.gif”, “12343.jpg” as and when possible.
  • Do not write excessively lengthy filenames.
  • Do not stuff keywords into the image file name unnecessarily.

Do not consider ‘ALT’ Tags optional

Image Alt TagsAs an anchor text is to a link, the same is an ALT tag for an image. It’s equally important. Make sure your images have proper ALT tags. Be concise yet descriptive while writing this tag for your images. Do not write long sentences or paragraphs, keep it small.

Search engines and assistive technologies like the screen readers can’t actually see the images as we do. This tag helps them understand images better.

Have an Image Sitemap, if possible

If you have many images on the website or blog, consider creating an image sitemap for them. Like a link sitemap, a sitemap specific to images helps search engines index your images quick and properly.

Have more suggestions image SEO to add? Leave your suggestions in the comment section below.

 

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