Search Engine Optimization (SEO) emphasizes optimizing web elements, wherein images are crucial. Their integration becomes the main reason for the slowed upload speed of a website. This happens because of unoptimized images or pictures. Certainly, this condition won’t enable it to rank at the top of Search Engine result pages (SERPs). This is simply because users won’t be happy to face slow loading of the website, and they would certainly choose to bounce out of it and prefer a new option. This would result in a high bounce rate, low visibility, a smaller number of inquiries, and obviously, low revenues.

Even if you see Google images, multiple filters, metadata, and characteristics can be witnessed, which explains how significant it is to Optimize Images. For sure, the leading search engine takes references from those attributes and ranks them up.

So, it’s necessary to optimize images.

Best Practices to Optimize Pictures for Greater Visibility on Google

Integrating the Right Image

The very first step is to use original images. They should be extremely relevant, illustrative, and informative, reflecting the topic. Don’t compromise on their quality. As far as placement is concerned, keep it near the top of the page.

Optimizing images

Once the right images are found, you need to enhance their quality and resolution to optimize them for your website. Here is how you can optimize it.

1. Choose the right file name

Google bots do not understand images unless you enter the file name. It should have a focus keyphrase. Keep it meaningful, like data-science techniques, but not like DCPO34.jpg. If you don’t have any idea, just pick up the topic of the article or the blog and name it.

2. Select the right format

There is no particular format that is ‘right’ or ‘standard’. It is recommended to follow these guidelines:

• Select JPEG files for larger-sized images to achieve this. You can see excellent results if it’s attractive, clear, and relevant to the topic.
• PNG format will be good for images that require a transparent background.
• For websites, you can try integrating WebP instead of JPEG and PNG. This alternative will deliver high-quality images. And you don’t need to compress them. To convert images in this format, use tools like Squoosh.
• If there are logos and icons, you can use the SVG format, which is manageable in this format. This format allows for resizing images without compromising their quality.

Optimizing for image SEO

As aforementioned, loading times strengthen the way to an excellent user experience. As it uploads faster, visitors explore it deeply while navigating multiple pages. This is exposure, which significantly impacts web ranking. So, it’s always good to keep the image size small. Even if it is smaller, resize the image as the search engine directs.

If you work on WordPress, it automatically resizes images after uploading, no matter how different their dimensions are. However, this does not mean that the image is optimized as per Google’s guidelines. You have to do it because it’s the display size only. So, always optimize them.

Use responsive images

Responsiveness is related to the display of the web page. It refers to optimizing it according to the screen size of various devices, like mobile phones, TVs, iPads, etc.

However, some platforms, like WordPress 4.4, have a default feature that automatically optimizes it. It is called the srcset attribute, which enables it to serve a seamless browsing experience by adjusting the displayed image according to the width of the screen.

Compress to reduce file size

For resizing image dimensions, it is necessary to keep its size as small as possible. However, platforms like WordPress can automatically compress it. But it’s not enough. You have to reduce its file size.

To reduce its file size, delete the EXIF data. Or, you can use tools like ImageOptim, Squoosh, or jpeg.io to do it automatically. There is another way to see if your web pages are suffering, which is to test them with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest.org.

Improve LCP in Core Web Vitals

Unoptimized layouts can be recognized through displaced content, which happens when images are loaded. Web designers eliminate this problem by specifying the width and height of images in CSS. It enables the browser to procure the required space before it’s loaded fully. This is how the browser renders the content accurately without shifting the layout.

This practice is necessary for improving core web vitals, especially the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). Being linked to the user experience, web designers try this hack in CSS codes: 

img {  width: 500px; /* Set the desired width */  height: 300px; /* Set the desired height */}

Some smart designers avoid fixed pixel values and insert relative units like percentages or viewport-based units (such as vw and vh) so that the image can adapt to different screen sizes.

The next thing is resizing the actual file size. The CSS code helps in the resizing of the display size, but not the actual file. So, compressing and resizing images are necessary for faster loading. This is how you can improve your website’s overall performance and user experience.

Adding the image to your article

Google recognizes images through the following protocols:

• Title

Online users use captions to scan an article, which has headings, images, and subtitles. However, every image does not necessarily require a caption. But you should add those that make sense to the visitors who intend to discover what the image is all about.

So technically, SEO does not require it, but user experience does.

• Alt Text

This tag refers to descriptive text. It is required to overcome such situations when your image is not visible for some reason. In this case, descriptive text provides context through its caption.

This is how the website enhances its accessibility. So, it is excellent practice to add an alt text. For a definition, ensure that it has the SEO keyphrase. Avoid adding it to every image. The key thing is to describe the context and what’s in the image so that the search engine bots can discover it and cater to relevant users.

• Title Text

Title text or image titles are similar. Many SEO experts integrate it to show it as a tooltip, which typically emerges when someone hovers over an image.

Add image-structured data

Adding structured data has no direct link to ranking higher online. But Google prefers it to make your image appear in searches. So, you should specify that the image refers to an instance of the particular (relevant) type. It should have image attributes that make it crawlable and indexable. However, Yoast SEO automatically integrates accurate structured data with many images.

XML Sitemaps

Sitemaps are like a directory of the website where you can find all page links in a place.

While adding, you may use Google image extensions so that it can fetch more information about images on your website. Also, it allows bots to crawl and index them on the search engine.

Serving images via an image CDN

CDNs fulfill the need for site speed optimizations. Some companies provide it because they would like a walkover to optimize images. This feature makes web pages fast, loadable, and accessible.

An image CDN allows you to determine which elements load when and how they should be uploaded. For example, the conversion of PNGs into web image formats should be lightning-fast with these image CDNs.

There are multiple alternatives, like Sirv, Imagekit, etc., that help you determine how to resize pictures.

Summary

Image optimization is a key aspect when it comes to defining online visibility. It enables search engines to crawl into and index the images so that they can appear in searches. It also gives a boost to the overall ranking and performance of your website.