Whether you write articles for a web newspaper or blogging is your passion, you need to select images and pictures appropriately. It is because images bring life to your articles by attracting the targeted audience and contributing to the SEO of your website. However, it seems easy to hear than to do as you have to optimize images to play a positive role in improving website rankings in search engines. Yes! Image SEO is a real thing.
The article explains all essential considerations that you must focus on while optimizing images for popular search engines. Before that, let’s understand why and how to use images in your content.
Why use images?
Have you ever heard “a picture is worth a thousand words“? However, the saying brings no truth about Google, as you surely need to write words also. However, images are used in the posts and articles to add colors to the words. It actually spices up your words into illustrations.
You can make posts and blog articles more enticing for social media. So, use the images wisely because visual search is on the plate of Google for future search. For this, adding pictures with cool filters can increase the popularity of your blog in search engines. Don’t forget to choose it carefully!
Important Things to Optimize Images to Boost SEO Results
It is imperative to optimize the visual content for the targeted audience and the search engines. Basically, image optimization helps in improving content loading speed and optimization. Therefore, if you don’t pay attention to optimizing images, you are surely wasting a valuable asset of SEO.
Do you want to learn simple ways of doing this? Let’s consider it together:
Pick the right image format
First thing first, the image format plays a significant role in the decoding and appearance of the website. It is imperative to consider different types of formats available in pictures and pick the best one. The most commonly used formats are JPEG, PNG, and WebP (an image format by Google).
It is suggested to use WebP because the file size is relatively less than the other formats. However, you have to create a balance between quality and image size. On the other hand, JPEG, PNG also have high quality, but the file size is large, don’t use it.
Compress the selected images
An image without compression can make your webpage heavy, taking longer than expected to load in the browser. So, you should not take any risk by uploading an image without decreasing its weight by density. You may also find many compression tools for free and premium images.
You can use TinyPNG, ImageCompressor, or any other similar tool for compressing images. However, it is suggested to use the “WP Smush” plugin for WordPress websites. It will help you to decrease the image size without compromising the quality.
However, if you are not sure about image compression and optimization, you can get assistance from an SEO services company in Dubai to optimize images and content marketing strategies. After all, professionals know which image will suit your blog requirements in the best way.
Design attractive images
Images are the primary elements of content. Therefore, you should consider picking the best images to make your website stand out unique in the crowd. Why not design your distinctive photos based on your thinking patterns and perception? You can do it using Photoshop and other picture editing software.
Copying images from different websites may cause cluttered looks of your articles with the same stock of photos everywhere over the internet. Instead of this, a custom image can attract visitors’ attention with a fresh-looking image. It has a positive impact on your website visibility in search engines.
Ensure to have SEO-Friendly Alt Text
An alternative tag is used to define the image if the browser is not loading the pictures. In other cases, the alternative text is used by individuals with visual impairment to understand the concept behind the image. It helps the readability.
Additionally, you must comply with web accessibility guidelines that require individuals to use alternative text and caption for images. So, don’t forget.
Avoid copyright conflicts
It is related to ethical concerns about using an image for your blog. You should consider that copyright issues can cause havoc on your business, and people have to face a lawsuit for using copyright images in worse situations. Therefore, you should use the image with a license or freeware.
If you violate copyright, issue a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to let the image owners know and act accordingly. Google enables users to access the filtered results of reusable images, and it is better to pick such photos to avoid any issues in the future.
Customize the name of image files
You may be surprised to know that even the file name makes a big difference in optimizing images. In this regard, you have to focus on using keyword-rich names for image files. Google considers image file names for matching the relevancy of searched queries.
For instance, you will write a post about mobile applications; it is better to name the file as “top-mobile-apps” or something related. Don’t forget to consider the concepts of search engine optimization for writing image file names.
Instead of facing so much difficulty, it is better to get assistance from website maintenance professionals. They will optimize your blog and images, and it helps in ranking blogs accordingly.
Image optimization is the key to the blog’s success!
Summing up, visuals and images make the content more attractive and inspiring. Therefore, it is essential to use pictures to add colors to your words. However, pay greater attention to image selection and optimization because a lack of proper knowledge in this regard can be counterproductive.
Be smart- Happy image optimizing!
