Last updated - May 17, 2022
Great website photography is often the key to a well-executed marketing campaign. Even if you don’t have any creative talent, it’s still possible to boost your SEO rankings by creating professional-looking images and updating your image for every article on your website. However, adding an ideal image to your website is not as easy as you might think. But if you want an optimized website and great search results, you must do things to ensure that the photos are properly optimized before you publish them. You may find it time-consuming and tedious to complete all necessary steps. But if you want to get favored results, it’s worth the time and effort.
Learn The Importance of Images On A Website
Before applying the optimization techniques, it’s important to understand the significance of images on a website. While browsing websites, most people only see text and images, so images must be properly optimized for SEO. It’s a common misconception that images on websites have no real purpose and don’t add much value to the text content. Most people will agree that an image is more compelling than just a few words placed side by side in the content. As a marketer, you must be aware of this concept now so you can start optimizing your images as soon as possible. Here are the advantages of using images on your website:
- Websites With Compelling Images Get More Views – We are very visual creatures, and images are particularly appealing to us. When we view a website, the first thing we look for in an image. If the image is not interesting, we will most likely not bother reading the text on the site. So if you want more people to stay on your website longer and read your content thoroughly, you should incorporate images that make it appealing and engaging.
- Images Bring Your Product To Life – If you are selling a product, you would want potential buyers to picture themselves using the product. With an image, the new owners can easily envision how they would use the product. Since they have a clear picture of what they are looking for, they will be more likely to purchase it. But if your images fail to capture their attention, it will be difficult for them to get excited about buying your product.
- Higher Search Engine Ranking – Images can help you rank higher in search engines. The captions you give your images can provide a description of your products, which can speak a thousand words. If you provide the captions with the keyword you want to rank for, it will help search engines determine the relevancy of your content for that particular keyword.
- Compelling Website Images Fuel Social Media – Compelling images can play a vital role when it comes to spreading the word about a certain product, company, and service. Companies use images to attract viral traffic and generate interest in their products on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. If your image is compelling enough, then it will be worth sharing across all your social media audience so that they can spread the word about your products. And when users share an image on the social media platform, it helps you achieve better search engine ranking in the future.
Knowing all of these reasons, you should incorporate images on your website; you should also know that you will miss out on all these benefits if you don’t optimize them accordingly. You won’t get the traffic you need to make money from your site. And if it’s not optimized with SEO in mind, search engines have no way of knowing the meaning behind your words and photos. The following a
8 Things You Must Do For Every Image ON Your WordPress Website
Do you want to create a professional and optimized image for your website? Here are eight things you must do for every image on your WordPress website.
Compress
When adding images to your website, the first thing you should do is compress them. Compressing will make sure your images are small-sized in terms of file size. The smaller the file size, the faster it loads on your site, which will improve your website speed and user experience.
In addition, you should also make sure the image size is the appropriate size for the website. The image should not be too small or too large, and you must optimize it for the web. An image that is too large will be slow to load, and it will decrease your search engine ranking. On the other hand, if it’s not big enough, it will appear grainy on a website.
Edit
When you are planning to add new photos to your website, make sure you edit them before submission. Images that lack quality are why most people will leave a website before reading the page. If you want people to stay and continue reading your content, make sure your images are clear, sharp, and easy to read.
Compressing your image will reduce the file size, but it will probably lose its true quality. Therefore you should use photo editing software to compress your image without losing the original qualities. If you know how to use Adobe Photoshop, you are on the right track. However, if you don’t have this software or any other editing tools, don’t worry because plenty of free online tools is available, such as PicMonkey and Pixlr Editor. These tools allow users to edit photos on their web browser without downloading any software on their computer.
File Name
Before uploading any image on your WordPress site, make sure you have the right file name. The file name will be used when people refer to the image or use it on social media platforms. For example, if you want to use your image as a post thumbnail or featured image, you should specify a file name that would be referred to and recognized.
It’s not a good idea to add spaces or numbers in the file name of your images because search engines tend to ignore these things. You should always add relevant words and numbers in their place so search engines and users can easily recognize them. Also, you should use a file name that can easily explain what the image is about. For example, if someone needs to know more about your product and has several photos of it, you should name your images accordingly. So instead of naming them “image-1.png”, “image-2.png”, and so on, use something like “product-name-product image 1.png”, “product name product image 2.png”.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
When you upload photos to your WordPress site, there is a default URL that users will view. However, this default URL isn’t always the best because it can be difficult to locate or remember, so you should use your custom URL instead. If your WordPress site uses an image slider, you can add your URL to the code. Instead of using the same URL as everyone else, you should make sure that it is unique and easy for people to find. For example, if you have a website about a certain food and one of the images shows a recipe for preparing that food, you can specify a unique name based on what the image is about.
One of the ideal ways to find a good URL for your images is to use a relevant keyword that users will find when they search for it. For example, if you have an image with a list of various products, then you can name it like this: [[Product Name] product images] and [[Product Name] product images 2]. It will help users easily identify your products without even having to click on the image.
Image Title Attribute
An image title attribute is a text that appears below the image. You can use the title attribute to list the names of people and places shown in your images. When you create an image for your website, you can create a title attribute. It should be very small so that it’s not as easy to read as the other words and descriptions in your post or page, but it should be easy to find if someone is looking for it.
This way, whenever someone is looking at an image from a WordPress site, they will have to click on the text to view the actual picture. It can be used when you have multiple images in a post or page, and you want people to know which image they’re looking at.
Alt Text Attribute
The alt attribute is a text that appears when a user views an image on your website, yet the image hasn’t loaded. It can be very useful if you have images on your site for some visual representation but don’t necessarily need to be viewed specifically by the reader. For example, if you have an image on your website to give readers an idea of what the food you’re selling can look like, you should consider adding a textual representation of that image.
You can add different representations within the alt attribute and make sure it’s below the title, so it has a chance to be displayed before the actual image is loaded. It’s important to add alt text because it will let people know what your images are about. In addition, you should use the same keywords in your post or page because this will help search engines when users search for them.
Caption
In WordPress, you can use the caption to describe your images further. It is a good alternative for an image title attribute and alt text attribute if you find them hard to write or choose from.
The caption is placed below an image, and you can add it manually when you upload an image into WordPress. However, this feature isn’t available in all WordPress themes, but if it is, then don’t hesitate to use a caption to explain what your images are about properly.
Description
The description is another element that will help you improve your search engine ranking. This description is added in your image meta information, and its main purpose is to give the readers an idea about what you are offering.
When writing the description for your images, it’s a good idea to add a unique description for each picture because search engines will notice this change, and therefore, it can lead to a higher placement in their search results. You can be as descriptive as you like, such as disclosing what type of cameras you used to take the picture or telling the story behind the pictures.
Conclusion
To make sure that your images are the best they can be, you need to optimize them. It will help your website in two ways: first, it will provide your visitors with a better experience, and second, it will help improve your SEO rankings. However, optimizing images can be quite hard because you have to find the right file names, descriptions, and keywords without creating a lot of clutter on your website. Luckily for you, this guide can help with that process by giving you important information about how to optimize images for search engines properly.
Another interesting plugin for image optimization: https://wordpress.org/plugins/optipic/ Its automatic convert image to Webp (for webp-supported browsers) and compressed/optimized png/jpeg (for webp-unsupported browsers).