Learn how to optimize your images for SEO with easy, actionable steps. Make your website faster and friendlier to Google with this straightforward guide.
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Before we get to work today, I have a small assignment for you.
Go to your homepage, right click on a few of your images and download them to your computer. Make a note of the file names and the file sizes.
Then come back to me.
Done? Good work. We’ll come back to that.
Now, let’s talk about optimizing your images.
Understanding Image Optimization
Imagine you’ve ordered a gift for someone off of Amazon. It comes in one of those wickedly oversized boxes full of tons of empty space.
Obviously you’re not going to wrap the grossly oversized outer shipping container, so you remove the inner package prior to wrapping it.
Then, you write a card that has the name of the recipient, maybe a short note about the occasion and your name signed at the bottom. Afterall, you want your buddy to know who the gift came from, right?
Image optimization works kinda the same way.
A photo that comes straight from your photographer or even off your iPhone is packaged in a grossly oversized container.
1) Before you package that up and hand it over to your audience, you need to reduce it’s size to something more manageable.
2) Once you do that, you need to give the image a meaningful title so that Google knows what the image is about and remind it who it came from.
3) And to tie this virtual package up with a bow? Fill out your alt text so that your site is accessible to folks with visually impairments and feed Google a few more details that will help it understand your content.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps:
1) Image File Size And Format
You have to compress your images.
Small images help your website load faster and website page speed is a ranking factor that Google uses to decide who to spotlight in the top search results.
If you are loading in photos that measure in MEGAbytes, your website is going to run slow as molasses. And Google isn’t going to serve you up in search.
Here are some really quick and dirty image compression guidelines:
- For the main “hero” image on your homepage (the big full-width image at the top of the page, if you have such an image), your image should be no larger than 2500 pixels wide.
- For the top images in your blog post, your image should be 1200 pixels wide.
- Everything else, keep it under 1000 pixels wide.
- Reduce image resolution to 72 or 96 psi.
- Save at 80% quality (but test this, make sure you maintain image quality).
- Image format matters: Save your images as a .jpg file (not .png).
If you’re on a Mac, you can use Preview to resize your images. Personally, I use Affinity Photo.
If you need to shave off a few more KB, drop it into a compression tool like www.compressor.io.
Final image size should ideally be under 100 KB before you upload it to your website.
But do the best you can.
2) Effective File Naming For SEO
Give your images a meaningful file name containing your name and SEO keywords (e.g. pelvic-floor-therapist-Jane-Doe.jpg).
Separate the words with dashes (not_underscores).
3) Alt Text For Accessibility And SEO
Alt text is descriptive copy that Google displays to folks using screen readers to consume content or if (for any reason) it can’t serve up your image.
It also provides Google with context to understand your image.
Alt text is important to improve the accessibility of your website and also it improves your SEO.
Don’t skip this step.
Where it feels natural, include your SEO focus keywords in your alt text, but don’t forget, alt text is first and foremost for humans.
Action Steps for Image Optimization
Now that you’ve checked your image names and file sizes, what did you find?
- Are your image names clear and descriptive, or are they still IMG_1234.jpg?
- Are your file sizes optimized, or are they slowing down your site?
If they need work, focus on your most important pages first: your homepage, service pages, and top-performing blog posts. You don’t have to fix everything at once.
Small improvements add up, so start where you can and keep refining over time.
If you read this far but you’re thinking, “Wow, this is all overwhelming!”, I’ve got you covered.
SEO is my jam, and I’m here to help simplify things.
Let’s talk about where YOU should start and how I can lighten your load. Book a free call, and let’s get your SEO on the right track together.
2 Responses
Thank you for these tips! I’ve always known this was important but this post breaks the steps down so it’s simple and manageable. Going back through my images now!
Thrilled to hear that! It’s always my goal to make SEO more simple. If you have any questions as you dive in, reach out!