How to Optimize Images for your Website
Uploading visuals to your website is a pretty simple process, so simple that it can sometimes overshadow the importance of image optimization. Optimizing images for your website isn’t just a way to make your photos look better – it’s also a critical part of improving your search engine traffic.
Here are five simple tips for getting the most out of your website images:
1. Choose the right file type: Each image file has a suffix that shows the file’s format. You may already know that the most common image file formats are .png, .jpeg and .gif. What you may not know yet is that different file formats behave differently and determine the way an image will load and look. Web designers decide on an image’s ideal file format by factoring in aspects like colors, size, density of information and more. However, you don’t need to be a web designer to optimize your images. You can start improving your images today by reading this great article about the three main image formats.
2. Define image quality: Almost all photo editors today allow you to save images to your desktop at different levels of quality (and you can always use free online tools like Pixlr if you need more options). Contrary to what some people think, saving an image with the highest quality isn’t always your best bet. Large images like backgrounds, and pictures that don’t need high definition, can be saved at a slightly above-average quality in order to reduce the file size and improve your site’s loading speed.
3. Save with better file names: When you go over the image folders on your computer, how many photos have uninspiring file names like “image1.jpg”, “012794.gif” or “dinner, june 2012.png”? When you upload images to the web, this simply cannot fly. More than an just easy way to keep track of your photos, your file name is used to categorized your pictures on image search engine results. Because search engines read file names for SEO purposes, you’ll need to make sure that your images are label accurately. It’s best practice to be descriptive without using too many characters in your name.
4. Utilize titles and descriptions: When you upload an image to your website, you can add a title and a few words to describe what the image stands for. This text is the meta information that search engines read about your images, and it helps them understand your site better, which in turn helps with your SEO ranking. That’s why it’s so critical to use clever image texts. The idea image text is a perfect balance between your website’s keywords and a truthful description of the image content. Here’s how you edit image texts for Wix websites.
5. Think about the dimensions: Choosing how much space your image takes up can be just as important as the picture itself. The recommended height and width of your website images largely depends on the layout that you chose, the emphasis you wish to place on the visual content of your site, and how your site will look on mobile devices. Choosing the right dimension for your images will not only improve the overall look of your website, but it will also help your website achieve a more professional and put-together look.
