Images enhance the user experience by breaking up content and improving the visual appeal of a page. They also make content more shareable, which means that they can improve your social media reach, while the use of original images, and the proper optimisation of images on your page, can even improve your search engine rankings.

Default file names

If you are using your own images, the first thing you need to do is stop using the default image name that is given by your camera or camera device. These tend to be nonsensical, and certainly don’t include a description of what the image is. Rename the files, try to include a specific keyword, and if you are using multiple images of the same product, use an array of relevant and optimised keywords in the file name.

Don’t ignore ALT tags

Similarly, you should also avoid the trap of ignoring ALT tags. ALT tags are important for accessibility. If a browser is unable to display an image for any reason, the Alt Tag will be displayed instead. Some browsers do not load images in order to improve page Load Times, while viewers with visual impairments may use screen readers that cannot read images. The screen reader will instead read the ALT tag. Search engines not only index your image URL and title, but they also look at the ALT tag content.

Compress files and reduce file sizes

One of the potential problems of filling a web page with multiple images is that it will affect page load time. Most people only wait a few seconds for a page to load before clicking away and on to another site. Page load times are also used as a ranking factor by Google, so don’t overlook the importance of this one simple factor.

Although there are many ways that you could potentially improve page load times, minimising the file size of your images is potentially one of the most effective. Use image editing tools to compress the image file size and aim for files below 70kb in size. This may not sound a lot, especially if you have been busy taking high-resolution pictures, but you can still produce a good looking and effective picture in this resolution.

For more information on general strategies to improve your SEO ranking, contact Pixel Internet today.

the camera by Brad Montgomery licensed under Creative commons 4

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