In my last post about images I gave some tips on how to optimise images. There is said that you should:

  • Store images in a single directory;
  • Use keywords in the file names; and
  • Use Alt text.

These still hold true and are very sound ways to make sure that your images on your pages help your SEO efforts. Aside from these though here are more tips. They’re mostly common sense but like in most things the obvious once are the very things we overlook.

  • Use relevant images only – Make sure each image you use is relevant to the content near it.
  • Size matters – I’m talking about the actual size of the image and not the file size here. File size does matter but you want it to be smaller to make loading pages faster. On the other hand for the actual image size note that search engines think that the bigger the image is the more relevant it is to the site’s content. So do not go making a non-relevant decorative image larger than the important ones.
  • Image quality is important – You want to choose good quality images over poor ones. The quality I’m referring to is the clarity, contrast, etc. Of course you have to compromise between quality and file size. Find the right compromise.
  • Place important images at the top if possible – This affects not only SEO but also user-friendliness. However in cases where the images accompany a certain paragraph as illustration it is more important to place it near that paragraph since you want the image near the relevant text.

2 Comments to "Image Optimisation"

  • Data Entry Services said: On 05/05/2009 at 11:38 am

    My son and I have an ongoing argument about canned images. He hates them – he prefers REAL. I can’t produce REAL that has the quality of canned images but have tried a couple in my site.

    Thanks for the recap!

  • TriNi - make money online said: On 05/12/2009 at 1:59 am

    This is a great post about images. I’ve had trouble in the past with images slowing down the loading time of my website. Then I tried optimizing them and the quality came out horrible.

    I think I’ve found the balance now though.

    It doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore.

    I try to do all the tips you mentioned, relevance, size, etc.

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