Can you confidently say your website is engaging?

It doesn't matter the industry, adding images to a webpage is an important way to keep users on your site. While there is a whole lot of truth behind the "a picture is worth 1,000 words" cliche, there is a more compelling reason to add quality images to your site. Factually, users are more likely to click on things when they see an image. Not convinced? Take a look at Twitter. When Twitter changed their display settings so that you can see images without having to click on a link, Twitter reported a significant increase in engagement. Additionally, images can have a positive impact on your SEO. If optimized correctly, images can give your page a bump in the SERPs. 

Optimizing Images in the Interest of SEO

It's not enough just to upload an image to your website or blog. If you want the image to boost your page, there are several steps you need to take to optimize the image:

• Image File Names Matter:

  When you save an image, the default file name is usually a series of numbers, like this: 361803055_ef046d3f13. That doesn't make sense to anyone, not to your users and not to Google bots that crawl your website. If your page is about industrial water softeners and the image is of an industrial water softener, spend three seconds renaming the image "industrial_water_softener." Google and other search engines will see these words in the file name, and index the image accordingly. Essentially, this lets you add a keyword to your page without engaging in the counterproductive practice of keyword stuffing.

• Don't Leave the Alt Text Blank:

  Alt text is used to describe what the image looks like when the image cannot be rendered on a page. If for any reason your image doesn't load your alt text will be in place of the image to help users understand what was supposed to be there. Alt text is also used by screen readers to describe images to those who cannot see them. Good alt text will describe what is happening in the photo to help google and users understand the image.

• Image Sizing Impacts Page Speed:

  If your image is too big and takes too long to load, it may delay the full page load for users. When a page doesn't load correctly or quickly because of image size, users can be impatient and leave. Conversely, if the image is too small it's value and purpose are extinguished. In some cases you can also look at using advanced image file formats (webp) over .jpeg and .gif to help large images load quickly.

• Image Quality:

  Nobody wants to see grainy, blurry, or stretched images (example below). Make sure the dimensions of your images are optimized for desktop and mobile users!
  

Image Optimization is Not Optional

Images are essential to a quality user experience and a crisp, detailed image of your product can help users decide whether or not they want to buy it. For more information about image optimization, contact our Digital Marketing Department at Ecreative today!

Photo credit: gamene / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)