Website images and SEO are really closely intertwined. Just like how great images can enhance your image’s share rate and readability, it can also improve some of your SEO metrics.
Image optimization for SEO purposes is an art you need to learn how to master. As images take up more space on your website, it’s natural to find ways to improve them not only for better user experience and functionality, but also for better ranks and traffic.
Here are some essential things you should know about SEO:
- Choose the right image format
Decoding all the different image formats is like you would order at first time in TacoBell. But, before you start adding images to your site, make sure you have selected the best file type.
Although there are many image formats to choose from, PNG and JPEG are the most common for the internet.
PNG: It produces better quality images. But its file format comes with a huge size.
JPEG: You may lose image quality. But at the same time, you can adjust the quality level to find a better balance.
GIF: GIF format when you have an animation or illustrated in the same situation or the PNG format.
- Optimize image file weight
You can load the page faster by reducing the image quality, this can improve the speed of the website. Faster website means better user experience. This turn leads to increased conversions. According to a study by Kissmetrics, 1-second delay in page response can cause 7% reduction in conversions.
Images are a bigger issue for mobile users. These are too large, many times unnecessary, slowing down the page load and preventing the user from accessing the information.
The size of an image is given by its quality or the number of pixels. The higher the pixel of an image, is likely it will lead to a greater size, dimension and quality. That is why it is recommended for JPEG and PNG formats to reduce the quality by 15 to 20%. There are a large number of software available for this option.
For example in Adobe Photoshop, for both JPEG and PNG have the option to optimize images for the web. The steps are also very simple.
Another option for compression images is Affinity Photo, which can be similar to a Photoshop, but inexpensive.
For beginners like GIMsicle, JPEGtran, JPEG Mini, OptiPNG, pngquant, FileOptimizer, ImageOptim, there are softwares that are additional easy to use and to reduce the quality of images, like Gimp and other smaller software.
There are many online editing tools like TinyPNG and Trimage. These are the two most used tools for compressing images.
There is Pageweight by imgIX, where you can add your website and evaluate the amount of visual content. For that, there are three key metrics are calculated for each site.
They are:
- How images are affecting your page weight,
- Your worst performing image,
- Your page’s image breakdown.
For every decision, there are some recommended actions to improve the delay of your load page, reduce weight and optimize the images.
