Do You Optimize Your Images For SEO

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10.9K followers
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How To Optimize Your Images For Ranking Purposes


Hi Folks

I have had so many questions asked of me this week about images. From where to access them to how to insert them into articles, and should I describe them. As far as I was concerned that was the most important question of them all.

Image SEO is so important. Why? Simple, Google does take your images seriously when ranking your site, so the time you spend optimizing them is a great investment of your time and effort. However, it seems that members of WA, especially the newer ones don’t realize that they can use images to drive traffic to their website.

Choosing The Right Image

Always try to use original images if you can. If you run an online store, then you’ll definitely need unique images of the products you're promoting. Google likes unique.

Does this mean that Google dislikes non-original images? Well, yes and no, but your rankings can suffer if you use an image that is found on sites all over the internet.

Therefore avoid overused images. There's an easy way to find out if an image is already used on other sites. Find related images with the reverse image search feature on Google.

In Chrome, it’s even easier: right-click on any image online and choose “Search Google for image”. You’ll see all the instances where it appears on the internet. If there are many, choose something else.

So, you’ve got your image. Should you go and post it on your site just as it is. No. You should resize it first.

First make it as small as you can. Why? Because page speed is now a ranking factor for both mobile and desktop searches on Google, and a heavy image will slow your page down.

I would advise against trying to make it smaller with CSS. You have to actually scale it.

You can use any image editor that has the scale/resize feature. I personally just use Paint because it comes as standard with Microsoft. Decide how small you want it in pixels and scale it down to that size.

Describing Your Image

Google pays attention to filenames, so choose a title that describes the picture. Not image 1, image 2, image 3, etc etc. That's just plain stupid, but I have actually come across those as well.

Here's a good tip when naming an image. Never use underscores? Why? because Google understands hyphens as separators between words, but it’s blind to underscores.

Google’s favourite image format is .WEBP. It’s great for compression, it makes your pages faster, and it’s being developed by Google.

Now you have your image in your Media Library and you want to add it to your site.

Lets start with the Alt Text. It’s called “alt” because it will be used as an alternative if the actual image fails to load.

Google learns a lot from the alt text, so it should describe your image clearly and keep it under 120 characters.

You can add keywords, but the text should still read naturally and make sense.

Research has shown that people read captions more often than other parts of your page. What’s more, search engines read them as well, so add them!

A caption should refer to the image, and add useful information if possible.

The same applies to your Description. Make it relevant.

Finally, Google is particularly attentive to the text that’s close to images. So make sure to place your picture next to the paragraphs containing your keywords that are relevant to the image.

Its been said that by next year, voice and image-based searches are going to make up at least 50 percent of all searches. What does this mean for you as a website owner?

That images will soon become your key source of traffic – as long as you know how to use them.

Take note of my tips and advice above and you will be a step ahead of your competition.

Have a great day folks and be successful.

Robert Allan

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Recent Comments

111

Thank you Robert. I'm sure this is common knowledge but for me, with everything I'm learning, I hadn't thought about optimizing an image nor did I know how to. So I value your knowledge and expertise. And btw, my site is slower due to my images. I'll correct that immediately.

Thank you

No probs Brian and hope you will get on to filling in those images boxes soonest.
You will see a difference in your site speed and dare I say it your ranking as well.
Onwards and upwards.
Robert

Thank you, Robert for this information, I have saved this post for further use.

Always best to bookmark the blogs you know will be of some help to you later on Ruthlyn.
Thank you for read and have ban awesome Sunday.
Robert

Thanks Robert, great advice. I didn't understand what to put in those boxes, so I've been leaving them blank. Time to go back and fix it today. It's so important.

Have a lovely day.

Lily 😊

lol...Youtube saved me a lot in that respect

No probs Lily and thank you for stopping by.
I have to confess I didn't always fill in the Caption Box, but the Title and the Alt text are most important.
Its a bonus when you get to add to them with the Caption and description so best to use all four.
Enjoy your Sunday evening.
Robert

Video is great as well Mercedes but they too have description boxes and title boxes so use them to your advantage.
Enjoy your day.
Robert

Hi Robert
Thank you for your post. I have enjoyed reading it and it is certainly an eye opener on how SEO for images will change in the near future.

Hi Angela and thank you for reading.
Images are becoming more an more important for ranking purposes so best to take full advantage.
Have a good one.
Robert

Thank you for this Robert. Great tips and advice as usual!

Happy to point you in the right direction Jenny.
Make sure you use those tips and advice in the blog and you will see a difference in your ranking and visitors.
Have a great Sunday.
Robert

Yes, definitely 😃

Ever onwards and upwards Jenny.
Robert

Hi Robert! You have packed a LOT of valuable information in this post.

I am starting the process of making sure that my images are optimized correctly.

You can never have enough info when it comes to marketing online Sondra.
Some you can use right away and some you are sure to need further down the line.
Hope you have a great Sunday.
Robert

A great insight. Thanks a lot for this good info.

Happy to pass on the tips and advice Emmanuel.
Have a great Sunday.
Robert

Hey Robert

Thank you for helping me leatn how to SEO my images.

This was one of my problem areas.

Once more, thank you kindly.

Best regards,
Maxine

Happy to pass on my tips and advice Maxine so hope you now have a better understand what you must do with your images.
Enjoy your Saturday.
Robert

Yes. you do the same Robert.

Maxine

Hi Maxine, I have not been seeing you, you were in my thoughts, happy to see you are ok.

Thank you for reaching out Ruthlyn.
It's really nice to be back.

Any changes since I was gone?

:-)Maxine

I always optimize my images before uploading and while PNG is what's recommended in the training for better quality, they are much bigger in size than JPG, making my page to load slowly.

Sure there are plug ins that will automatically optimize images but I am not considering it at this time because as Kyle said, too many plug ins will also slow down our site.

So what I always do is compress the image using tinypng before scaling them into the size that I want. Anyway, I will check out WEBP.

Thanks Robert.

Hello Alice and thank you for stopping by my blog.
I favor JPG as well.
As you say the PNG will slow down your site if they are of a bigger size than they need to be.
Also they don't resize as well as the JPG for some reason.

WA has brought out Kraken and replaced EWWW Optimizer Plugin. Do you use it yourself?
Robert

No I haven't. But now that you mentioned it, I'll give it a try, thanks Robert.

I'm sticking to EWWW on my wordpress but I suppose if I build a new site with WA I will give Kraken a try.
Enjoy your Monday.
Robert

This is great. I'd just add that users should check whether the image can be reused. That is a feature in all browsers.

Hello Mercedes and thank you for your visit.
Always happy to point members in the right direction with my tips and advice.
Enjoy your weekend.
Robert

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