One of the most important steps to take under the SEO umbrella is none but image optimization. A comprehensive SEO campaign includes a key strategic plan for curating pictures that resonate with your audience while still remaining relevant to your content. Google itself recognizes the significance of imagery and shares some supportive tips on image optimization on their guidelines for image publishing.

To enable you ensure you are optimizing your images appropriately, here are six Tips for SEO Image Optimization to get you off to a great start.

Tips for SEO Image Optimization

#1. Use unique images that are page relevant

Readers are far more likely to react to an image before they start reading your post.

It is human nature to get our attention focused on images. An engaging picture that connects with your topic in a novel can inspire readers to share your content, and will unquestionably leave an impression.

Take your time to source out images that illustrate the subject of your post with drama, humor or romance to appeal to your readers on an emotional level, and you are going to engage them more than a polished commercial shot of your new product. Even better? In case you’re able to add your own, unique image, which is far better for SEO purposes.

This is particularly true if your topic talks about a product or service that you offer. Don’t use a similar old royalty free image which people have seen a thousand times. Set aside the opportunity to snap a photograph yourself, that is relevant to your company, niche or topic, and use that instead.

For extra tips on using the best photography and photos possibly for your marketing, you can check this article from Shopify.

#2. Use the highest quality image format possible

Search engines prefer high-quality contents with high resolution images.

Web pages with images that are incorrectly formatted or poor in resolution can appear distorted on a mobile or tablet screen. Try not to sell your content short by using low-quality images.

Here are a few tips to remember while choosing file formats:

For most ecommerce cases JPEGs will be your best option. They provide the smallest file size and the best quality.
Do not use GIFs for large product images. The file size is going to be very large and there is no better way to reduce it. Use GIFs for decorative and thumbnails images.
PNGs can be a good option to both GIFS and JPEGs. If you are only able to get product photos in PNG format, try to use PNG-8 instead of PNG-24. PNGs excel at simple decorative images due to their extremely small file size.

#3. Reduce the size of your image

Google is pretty big on mobile; you should go as far as to create a mobile-first index.

This implies you have to account for mobile with your images. By downsizing large image files, you can increase page speed, which is important for mobile viewing.

Pages that take long to load usually suffer a high bounce rate because of the quick departure of anxious visitors looking for an immediate solution. Use a smaller and high resolution image of your product and offer your visitors the option of viewing an enlarged image.

There are many awesome tools for SEO Image Optimization, including:

Regardless of what tool you use, Image Optimization is very important as this is going to benefit both user experience and technical SEO on your website.

#4. Organize multiple images for better viewing

How you organize your images is similarly as vital as which images you choose.

Arrange your images in such a way that it makes sense in the context of the user’s journey. For instance, if you are showcasing an apartment for sale or lease using a series of images, index them in the logical order by which a prospect would go through the home.

Likewise, you have to ensure there aren’t any gaps in your imagery. For instance, you provide viewers with interesting angles of your car for sale but you neglect the important details, for example, the interior, lights, engine, and so forth is going to drive traffic away from your site. Images can communicate in ways text can’t, and you like your visitors to have a complete picture.

But, a caution word: it’s very important to always test the effectiveness of the quantity of images you’re using per page. It can be somewhat of a balancing act as reducing the quantity (number) of images will enhance loading time and can prompt more click-throughs.

However at the same time, providing more images, (for example, different angles of a product) can improve user or reader experience and lead to more conversions.

You ought to test different options to find the right balance for you reader or audience.

#5. Include a concise and precise caption with your image

Captions, like URLs, can get crawled by search engines.

Anyone using keywords related to your caption will find your webpage listed in the search page results. The key is maintaining both image relevance and page relevance.

Images with misleading captions will just drive your bounce rate rapidly higher, this will send poor signals to Google’s search engine that your content is not an appropriate and suitable match.

Besides, captions help make your content all the more engaging and very easier to understand for readers or audience. As indicated by KissMetrics, captions under the images are read, on average, 400% more than the body copy itself.

Leaving captions blank is a missed opportunity as far as user experience and SEO is concerned.

#6. Utilize the “Alternative Text” for SEO Image Optimization

Sometimes ignored, the alt text field provides users who are unable to access the image a content description of your image.

Rendering or providing your images in text facilitates use by interpreters for the health care attendants, blind and others performing important service roles to the physically challenged. Accurately filling out your alternative text gives another way to help users understand and digest your content.

These descriptions likewise serve to enrich or enhance the relevance of your content. This can raise your profile with search engines by helping web crawlers to understand your images better.

Like captions, alt text provides an opportunity to boost your content in regards to search optimization and user experience.

Conclusion

Moving to the top of the search results can be a very hard work, however well worth the efforts when you begin to see the returns in terms of organic traffic.

In order as to succeed, you have to do all that you can to enable your site to rank, and image optimization can be the additional spark your site needs to outrank the competition. At the very least, you have to follow these essential steps to ensure your images are optimized for search and user experience.