Optimize Your Website’s Images

Images on your website are very important, and they can be another area where good SEO can benefit your visibility. Search engines can search your images as their descriptions (captions, ALT tags, etc), so here’s a refresher on making sure your images are optimized, thanks to the users at the Cre8asite forums:

• Watch your load times! Don’t save your image in a format that is too large. This may adversely affect the load time of your image. Not everybody can download images quickly.
• Make sure you enclose your image in DIV tags, defined as an image class. This way, when bots spider your site, they’ll know when they stumble across an image.
• Image titles should be H tags, specifically H3 or larger. This will make them stand out on the page (so visitors know what they’re looking at) and highlights their importance to the search engines.
• Make sure you have a good image name with keywords if possible. File names should also be easily decipherable (this will help you keep your files organized too!).
• Add captions to your images. Tell website visitors exactly what the image is and why it’s so important to your site.
• Don’t forget your ALT tags! These are essential for not only the search engines, but for those who can’t see the images for some reason (don’t load images, impaired vision, etc). Those using screen readers to visit your site will benefit greatly from a good ALT tag for the image. Don’t just stuff it full of keywords either!
• Refer to images in your content to boost their relevance.
• Make sure your images look good and display properly on your page! Images that look outdated, don’t look right on the page, or aren’t relevant are a real turn off to website visitors. Keep them coming back with visuals that are just as compelling as your text.Images are great tools on websites, especially when well chosen and optimized properly. These tips should get you started on the right track.

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