Why Is It So Important to Optimize Images on Your eCommerce Website?
There are over 200 million websites active today.
Getting your site to the top of search engine rankings can be tricky, especially as the rules are subject to change.
Did you know that the images on your site have a large impact on your site ratings?
In the past many knew of the effect of SEO text, however, now more people are becoming aware of other forms of optimization, including image optimization.
How can you optimize your images to draw more attention to your site?
This is a mix of technical wizardry and plain common sense. Let’s see 2 crucial factors you need to remember when selecting your images.
- Increase the aesthetic value of images
- Choosing the correct image size for website optimization
Increase the Aesthetic Value of Images
Choosing good quality, hi-res images for your site is more than just a matter of pride. It actually affects your SEO. Why? In the past search engines were looking for textual elements such as keywords.
However, now Google algorithms are attuned to many more factors. One of these is dwell time. This means that the length of time that people spend viewing a webpage influences its SEO value.
Logically, a beautifully chosen, appealing image will cause the viewer to spend a crucial few more seconds looking at the webpage. This contributes to its overall value.
So, spend extra time perusing the many free for commercial use stock images knowing that it will affect your final rating.
Choosing the Right Image Size for Website Optimization
This can be a tricky judgment call to make. You want beautiful hi-res images that will impress visitors. However, you do not want a bulky image that will unnecessarily slow down the page.
Lag is a chief annoyance and will degrade SEO value. Google is expected to put greater value on faster loading pages in the near future.
To get the balance right:
Check the file size to make sure it will not take too long to download. A typical HD image from a photographer may be about 15 MB. However optimized web page images are maximum of 1mb!
Ensure that the image size in pixels is not too large. A normal blog image may be 795×300 pixels.
Resolution: Most computer monitors can display up to 92dpi. Images i.e. for printing are much larger than this, often up to 300dpi.
Fortunately, there are many free internet tools that you can use to reduce the size and resolution of large photos. If you have access to Photoshop it has inbuilt functionality. Or you can download Tinypng to compress the photo to a manageable size.
Image Size for Website Optimization and much more
Choosing the correct image size for website optimization only one of many factors that can improve your SEO. Yet so many people overlook it!
If you would like to know more about SEO techniques, drawing natural and organic to your site, why not Check out our blogs.
We provide regular and up-to-date articles that will help you to get ahead of the game and the competition.
