3 SEO Tips For Online Images

The world revolves around online images but you can’t just slap one up on a website and expect everything to be good. Ideally the image must be prepped in order to get the maximum SEO juice and to keep you site loading fast. Here are some tips from Three Sixtee Digital about prepping your images to get the best of both worlds.

1. Use The Right Image Format

Choosing the right format can make a big difference in the clarity of the image and how fast it loads. You can follow this outline:

• JPG – Use for photo images
• PNG – Use for logos, icons, transparent images and graphic assets in general
• SVG – Use for plain icons, shapes and background patterns, and logos

2. Compress Your Images

The smaller the file size of the image, the faster the page will load. Remember that people feel that if a page loads within 250 milliseconds that it was an instant load. Anything approaching 3 seconds and they’ll move on to something else.

• JPG/JPEG – no more than 150KB
• PNG – no more than 100KB
• SVG – no more than 50KB
• GIF – no more than 200KB

3. Use ALT Text

This is way more important than people are aware. Image Alt text helps search engines understand what the image is about, but it also helps visually impaired users using screen readers to read and understand the image.

The best practice to make sure that the ALT text describes the image, but also be sure to add any keywords into the text as well. Every website builder now makes this easy to add it, but it’s also very easy to let it go without filling it in as well. Make the extra effort as it might get your some new visitors that wouldn’t have come otherwise.

Online images help describe us and our lives, but given the right attention, they can be instrumental in building an audience as well.

---