I think it is pretty widely known that beautiful images and amazing graphics can make your website stand out but did you know they can easily break it?

‍

If you're not optimizing your images for SEO, they can easily undermine your entire website's performance, authority and search query rankings. So let's learn a few key steps and concepts that can keep your website looking amazing and running fast.

‍

Why does the optimization even matter?

‍

Every single image on your page adds to the overall load time. The more images or the bigger the file sizes of the images, the higher is your load time. This slows down and undermines the performance of your website dramatically. 

‍

Yes we can wait a few milliseconds for a page to load up… But 3,4,5 seconds?! That seems a little too much and we all know that we are much more likely to just get back home and not visit the website. When a website takes this much time to load it's not always just image optimization but we have to understand that it is a huge part of it. 

‍

Users are not the only ones upset by huge load times, Google is as well… Google takes site speed as a very important ranking factor, so be aware.

‍

Check out your site speed at Google PageSpeed Insights.

‍

Use high quality images and compress them

‍

It is very important to use high quality images that are in context, not only for the users but also for Google to rank your images as helpful. Tools like ILoveIMG can help you compress your images without losing much quality. If you're using Canva to create your graphics you can compress your images when exporting them.

It is true that when you have a website with 20 pages with not many images and graphics this might not be very crucial but it is always better to get used to it in case you will expand in future.

‍

Choosing the right format

‍

Different formats act differently when they are compressed:

• JPG format - faster to load
• PNG format - slower to load, higher quality
• WEBP - newest, fastest, comparable quality and little bit annoying in terms of applying it to your webpage

If you have a large, image-heavy website, like an eCommerce store, definitely go with WEBP. Otherwise, PNG and JPG are usually sufficient.

‍

Filenames & Alt-text

‍

Before uploading your image, rename that IMG_4321.jpg to something meaningful like damians-blog-logo.jpg. 

This helps Google understand what the image is, and adds context for users with screen readers.

Also, never skip the alt text. Not only is it essential for accessibility, but it boosts your SEO by telling search engines what’s in the image.

‍

Keep it original

‍

Do your best to use original images and graphics. Not only it better suits your text but also Google likes when you put out original content which brings value. Giving the world original and valuable content is key in order to rank high in search queries. 

All in all, as you can see, image optimization isn't that complicated. Remember a few key steps and apply them properly. Take the time to create valuable and fast content. 

Thank you for reading,

Damian from Visio.

‍

‍

‍

‍