Not only does optimizing the images used on your website put them higher in the Google Images search, it can help your website rank higher in Google Search as well. These three tips will cover the basics of image optimization.
1. Name your image files descriptively and in plain language
Before you upload your image, pick a descriptive filename—preferably a file name you want that image to rank for—because it will help with your search engine rankings. Creating descriptive, keyword-rich file names is crucial for image optimization. Search engines not only crawl the text on your webpage, but they also search for keywords within your image file names.
2. Optimize Your Alt tags
Alt tags are a text alternative to images when a browser can’t properly render them. Even when the image is rendered, if you hover over it with your mouse pointer, you can see the alt tag text created for that image (depending on your browser settings).
The alt attribute adds SEO value to your website. Adding appropriate alt tags to the images on your website can help your website achieve better rankings in the search engines by associating keywords with images and making it clear to search engines what the photo is.
When using alt tags, describe the photo in plain language as you would for your image file names.
3. Scale for Image SEO
Google uses the load time for a webpage as a factor in page ranking. The larger the file size, the longer it takes for a page to load. If you can decrease the size of the images you are using on your website, it will help your SEO and less visitors will click away.
This can be done in Adobe Photoshop, but if you don’t have Photoshop there are other free tools online that you can use for image editing. Adobe even has an online image editing application at photoshop.com. This online tool doesn’t have all of the capabilities of the desktop version of Adobe Photoshop, but it covers all the basics of image editing.
Other impressive online image editing tools are:
For more tips on image optimization, read this article on 10 Must Know Image Optimization Tips.
