Whether you are a blogger or a news writer for a popular publication, the first thing you will ask yourself after writing an article is, whether the post needs images or you should skip adding.
Well, the clever answer is always “Yes”. Because images are the backbone of your article that supports each word you write. It makes the content compelling and engaging, and your audience takes more interest while reading it out loud.
In short, images add life and character to your article as well as boost your SEO. Yes, when it comes to SEO, images are the most important factors to consider because your post might not rank if the images are not optimized properly.
But the question is, how can you optimize your images for SEO? Is it possible to do without professional assistance? What happens when you don’t optimize for images? Here in this post, you will most likely get all your answers. Read on to know the tips and ideas to optimize your images for SEO.
Add inspiring images with your content
When you add compelling, engaging, and relevant images correctly, they will help your audience understand the content better.
According to a famous quote, “A picture is worth a thousand words” which definitely doesn’t apply to search engines. But it’s quite important when you have to spice up your 1,000 boring words. You can easily illustrate and describe your ideas of what you really mean through a chart, graph, or diagram. Besides, when you share the post with images on social media, it gets maximum attention and views.
Images could make your article more attractive and appealing. Also, you could get nice traffic every day. especially when you have an option to rely on Google images that have recently changed the interface, you could get a huge library of images available in every size. It helps you select the right option that goes well with your text.
Resize the images
When you select the right image for your article, the next thing is to resize the file size which is basically the amount of space you need to store it on your computer.
Images that have high resolution with large dimensions could possibly slow your page loading time. They may work for print reproduction, but you need to scale down your image file size without compromising on their quality on the web.
Optimization of image file names
After resizing, it’s time to choose the perfect file format. PNG, JPEG, and GIF are probably the best formats available for your images. Each format type has its own benefits. Images that have lots of different colors look well in Jpeg format. And images that have simple background and structure may look well in PNG.
Since content swapping is forbidden by search engines, so even in the Panda update days, search engine indexing was not so quick or effective. So as a result, black hat practitioners find ways to manipulate Google’s algorithms.
However, those algorithms have greatly evolved now and quickly cripples the ranking of your website that has been closed from its indexation.
Content swapping has always been an easy method to get penalized by search engines. That’s the reason, it’s recommended to create engaging and compelling content that adds significant value to your subject and helps you stay away from this harmful trick that has dangerous consequences.
Choose a perfect file format
After resizing, it’s time to choose the perfect file format. PNG, JPEG, and GIF are probably the best formats available for your images.
Each format type has its own benefits. Images that have lots of different colors look well in Jpeg format. And images that have simple background and structure may look well in PNG.
Optimization of image file names
Choosing a relevant and effective file name is important for your image SEO as it gives the top ranking in image search results.
Before you upload the images to your website, make sure you rename them with the proper keywords you are using in the article or with any other effective tag that describe your image.
You can include primary keywords at the start and then add a hyphen for separating them. An important tip is, do not use underscores for naming the image as Google won’t recognize such symbols.
So, your image name should make sense to both humans and search engines. For example, a name like “how-to-do-on-page- SEO- jpeg.” is a perfect name.
Do not forget to include Alt tags
An interesting fact is your audience always knows what your image is all about. But Google’s spiders still want some clues to understand and rank the image better. Without adding your alternative text, search engines can never index the image and hence failed to rank in search results.
But when you add a relevant alt tag, it will provide an accurate context that could help viewers and search engines understand the image better. Even if images are failed to load due to any glitch, search engines could still easily read the alternative text which leads to a better ranking of your page.
You can also include some words relevant to your brands or services as it would boost visibility. Make sure you avoid keyword stuffing.
Optimization of image title
Image titles are not much important in SEO. They just offer an additional text to support alt text. If you are not using the image in WordPress or if that title is not explaining the whole image, then it’s better to rename it by using some appropriate words.
Add catchy captions
The words that are written beneath your images are called captions, which must be catchy and engaging enough to grab the audience’s attention. These captions do not impact SEO results directly, but they are just visible on your main landing page. They add to the best user experience because sometimes people are more drawn towards captions than the images or the content.
Addition of image structured data
Now the next thing is, make sure you add image structured data to the pages as it would help Google display the image as rich search results.
Image structured data support product images, videos, or recipes. For instance, if you are displaying some recipes on the website, and you tend to include structured data to the images, search engines could always include a badge to that image while displaying that it belongs to some recipe.ac
Struggling to get your articles noticed by a massive audience?
Image optimization is not a joke. That’s why most people feel difficult to optimize them for high search results.
If you are struggling to get your articles and blog posts noticed on your website, then make sure you are adding high-quality images and properly optimizing them for Google search results. Keep these strategies in mind as these tips will improve the possibility of getting your content ranked in search engines.
However, if you still do not understand some complex technical elements about SEO image optimization, then consult with Hukumat professionals as they are the ones that can help you deal with all the technicalities of image optimization. Happy image optimizing!
