What is Image SEO and why is it important?
Everyone finds books more interesting if they’ve got pictures in, right? The same rule applies to websites.
Images, photos, infographics, charts, diagrams — whatever your visual media of choice is — add interest to a page. They help break up large chunks of content and can also help your users understand the information you are trying to share.
(we should probably include some photos in this blog right…)
A screenshot of Google Image Search results page
But, there’s more to using visual media than simply adding some nice looking photos to your website.
Like with anything else on your website there are things to consider to make it as well optimised, and therefore the best user experience for your existing and potential website users, as possible.
(Optimised… that was a bit jargony. Sorry. Optimised means adjusting things on your website to make sure they are as easily readable by search engines as possible. And, user-friendly for your audience.)
So, what is Image SEO?
Image SEO is what you do to optimise the images on your website.
Without correctly optimising your photos, graphs, infographics etc search engines won’t be able to recognise and understand what your content is. And they won’t rank your images in their search results.
Without proper Image SEO, you could be missing out on reaching new and more people with your website.
It’s not just as simple as uploading an image
You’ve got to consider format, file name, file size, alt text, captions… and, yes, you’ve guessed it — the list goes on!
Wild SEO Agency can help you with the seemingly endless list of things when building a website to make sure your Image SEO is on point. But, for now - here are some things you can do yourself to make sure your images are optimised as best as possible.
Where to start with Image SEO
Make sure you’ve got the right image.
Does the photo you’ve chosen make sense for the page you’re putting it on?
Your own images are best, as they will be original and you can take photos that suit the content you are pairing them with. But, if you don’t have the time, equipment, or resources to take high quality images, there are loads of great sources of images to choose from:
Unsplash - The internet’s source for visuals. Powered by creators everywhere.
Shutterstock - All-in-one access to media with one subscription.
Next, you need to think about the image formatting and size
You might have the most relevant, beautiful, high-quality image ever, but if it’s too big and slows down the loading time of your page it’s no good.
You need to compress images to help your web pages load faster. A faster loading page means happier users.
There are lots of free image compression tools you can use to help you reduce the size of your images. Just give ‘image compression tools’ a Google…
You also want your images to be high-resolution. This means that your images have a high number of pixels appearing crisp and in focus.
High resolution = high quality.
When it comes to format there are so many different acronyms we could bombard you with. You’ll probably recognise JPEG and GIFs as image formats. But there are also PNGs, AVIF, SVG, TIFF (and more!!!)
Different images need different formats. In general JPEG is a great place to start. But, to get technical, this list gives you the ins and outs of what format to choose for different images such as: logos, diagrams, animations.
Naming your Image files
The names you choose for your files directly impact how easily a search engine interprets your images. Use relevant keywords that make sense on the page you’re adding your images to.
TIP: name your image files before uploading them to your website. Then they are good to go as soon as they are online.
What is alt text? And, why is it important?
Alternative (alt) text is a small piece of text that describes an image on a website. The alt text is not visible on your pages like a caption is – it appears in the source code of your website, as a line of HTML code.
Alt text helps search engines understand your images and list them so that they appear in people’s searches.
And why is alt text important?
Without alt text a search engine doesn’t know what images you are using.
People who are visiting your website with a visual impairment can use a screen reader to understand what’s on your site. The alt text will be read to them. Including alt text makes your content accessible to those who can’t see the images.
How to write good alt text
This could be a whole separate blog. But for now — here are top-line things to think about:
What’s the purpose of your image? Decide what’s the most important goal: fundraising, entertaining, shocking and then use words to meet that goal.
Keep it short - no more than 125 characters is the recommendation. A shorter description usually keeps it more accurate too. Don’t get carried away!
Include keywords - what words or phrases would your potential audience type into search engines when looking for the image you’re using?
Wild SEO can help with all the above, with understanding more about Image SEO, finding the best keywords to use on your website and explaining the process of formatting images.