Everything You Need to Know About Optimizing Images as a Blogger
Updated On July 23, 2021 | by Kamal
This is the age of digital marketing, and one of the most important aspects of digital marketing is SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In simple terms, SEO includes methods to make your website more visible and rank up in searches. Digital marketing agencies often have a separate department dedicated to SEO so that they can optimize their content efficiently. There are various tools you can utilize to optimize your images. GeoTag Images is one such service that can enhance your pictures and make them SEO-friendly.
GeoTag Images adds geographical information to an image. Images with such information are prioritized by search engines like Google as they are deemed more trustable. Thus, you’d often find images with EXIF data, including geographical information higher up in the search results than those without it.
Why Add Images at All?
If you are a blogger who prides themselves in penning down jewels, you might ask why there is a need for images at all? After all, you can paint a more vivid picture with your words. The reason behind this is that images capture the audience’s attention. Unless you’re writing for your fellow scholars, you will definitely need images on your blog.
Due to social media and the rampant use of screens, the average attention span of people has reduced. Images and videos capture a viewer’s attention and lure them into reading the whole blog. Moreover, images make the blogs look smaller. A blog that has its content broken into sections with an image after each section will look smaller than a blog with just text. Moreover, the former will also look more aesthetically pleasing.
Tips to Optimize Images in Blogs
To help you get started with image optimization, here are 5 tips that can benefit you.
1: Resizing Images
Have you ever come across a website that features teeny tiny pictures that look really odd? Or have you ever been stuck on a page with a lot of big pictures that took a lot of time to load? Both of these scenarios occur when the blogger does not consider image optimization. Resizing images to suitable dimensions is a very important part of image optimization. If you want to upload a picture directly from your DSLR camera, you will have to resize it to make it SEO-friendly. Otherwise, it can give the traffic on your website a hard time. You can use any photo editor such as Adobe Photoshop to resize your image.
2: Choosing the Right Image
Another important aspect of image optimization is choosing the right image. The best thing you can do is create your own image. That way, you control all the aspects of that image – from its dimensions to its EXIF data. However, if that is not an option for you, ensure that the image you acquire is legal. Some bloggers tend to download copyrighted images and paste them on their blogs. This can lead to a copyright strike and can bring your whole blog down. If you get hit with a lawsuit, it can lead to the downfall of your blogging career. Subscribe to a premium image provider or just look for non-copyrighted alternatives.
3: Image Compression
Image compression can reduce the size of your file with little to no effect on its quality. If your file size is too large, it may contribute to the loading time of the website. Longer load times of websites decrease traffic. You can use any photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop to compress your image. There are also free alternatives available on the internet. You can quickly compress your image and upload it on your blog. Image Compression comes into play once you have properly resized it. If you do it properly, you can see compression up to 40%.
4: File Type
There are three major file types – JPEG, PNG, and GIF. PNG is best for logos and banners that require top-notch quality. It is also useful for images that require a transparent background. For normal images, you can stick to JPEG. This is the most popular and widely-used image format on the internet. If you want to spice up your blog and add some animation, you can go with GIFs. The downside of the PNG image format is that it is quite sizable. Thus, it is only suitable for logos and banners. Including a lot of PNG images on your blog will increase the load time of the website. Unless the situation calls for it, stick to JPEG.
5: Alt Title Tags
What exactly is an alt title tag? If you bring your cursor on an image, the keyword it displays is its title tag. If the image is taken down for any reason whatsoever, the alt title takes its place. Thus, it is sort of a failsafe to preserve the integrity of the blog. Alt Texts help with Search Engine Ranking Page. Thus, you must have alt text in place for every image that you upload.
