Optimising your website's images can boost your SEO, accessibility and user experience. Below we have outlined best practices for your visual content to help improve on-page performance.
Our top tips
- Choose relevant images
It may seem obvious but make sure your images make sense with the rest of the content on the page. For SEO purposes, images and text should support each other. Ensuring a cohesive message is communicated to the user, helps enhance your website's performance. - Give your images descriptive file names
You want Google and screen readers to know what your image is. So match the image with the file name. For SEO purposes, file names should always be in lower case and words separated with dashes. - Re-size your images to correct dimensions
Images should be sized to fit the dimensions of the image area. For example, if you have a 250px 350px area for an image, make sure you re-size it to that aspect ratio. Don't rely on HTML/CSS to do this for you as, while the image will simply shrink down, the actual file will stay at the original size, which can impact page loading speed and be detrimental to your website's performance.
- Optimise your alt tags
Optimising your ALT tags will allow Search Engines to read and understand the contents of your website more easily...
1) Keep your ALT tags short and sweet - maximum 12 words
2) Describe the image itself, not the surrounding content
3) Write in plain text and regular sentences. No need for dashes, use spacing instead
4) Remember, ALT tags are for humans, so no need for keywords here - Caption your images
For added context you can add captions. These are often made visible once and image is clicked on and enlarged. Only add captions in cases where it is beneficial to the reader and will help them in their understanding. If it adds too much clutter or is likely to be very repetitive, then leave them off.
- Use the Correct File Type
Make sure you are using the right kind of image every time.
JPEG - this type of file offers great image compression and is likely to be used in most cases
PNG - use this file type where images with transparent backgrounds are required
GIF - use when movement is required
SVG - plain text files which allows Google to read the text on an infographic - And don't ignore WebP!
WebP is the latest image format that Google has developed as a replacement for JPEG, PNG and Gif file formats. Moving to WebP allows for even smaller, richer images while retaining their quality, and make your website even faster enhancing performance and user experience!
With images accounting for over a third of all searches, Google Image rankings are increasingly important. Follow the best practices in our guide and rank higher in search engines.
