How to Optimize Image SEO in WordPress

Search Engine Optimization, also called SEO used for optimize your post or page content to get a better rank in search engine results. You can boost SEO score by adding focus keyphrase in your post and creating an excellent meta description. But they are not enough for improve SEO. You can also use image SEO on this purpose. In this tutorial we’re going to discuss about image SEO and how it can be helped in WordPress site with some tips to optimize image SEO in WordPress.

What Is Image SEO?

Images are one of important parts of any website. It helps to break down post’s sections and it makes the website attractive to visitors. Optimizing image attributes also help to get better SEO. You can use either writing alt text or using relevant keywords in this purpose.

They will make easier Google to understand your content. The result is boost your ranking in the search engine results and make your images appear in the top of image search results. It also helps to better user experience and improve site’s performance. When you are adding images to your site make sure to add the correct size images. If you don’t do it, it will slow down loading your site. It is caused to get lower SEO. Because page speed is a factor of ranking in Google.

How Does Image SEO Help Your Site?

As we said before, Optimize image SEO leads your website to improve its performance. Google introduced a set of factors that measure site’s performance and quality in the core Web vital project in 2000.

There some tools helps you to test your site like  PageSpeed Insights. Largest Contentful Paint also called LCP shows the time it takes to load its largest element. That element can be a video or image. PageSpeed Insights gives some recommendations to optimize image.

You don’t use large images. Because it is caused slow down loading your website. It will damage to your site’s SEO and make your visitors away. Loading speed is a factor Google consider when ranking search engine results. Because Google wants to make sure users to find what they want easily and quickly.

Optimize Image  SEO can make your site load faster and get better SEO score and lead to a higher rank. Which means your site will improve its visibility in search results. Optimize Image SEO helps your site to be more accessible. If you are using alt text to describe your images, it will help Google to get better understanding of your content.

6 Ways to Optimize Image SEO

Now you already know how  Optimize Image SEO  works. Then take a look some ways to Optimize Image SEO.

1. Give Images Descriptive File Names

Google can understand your image by looking at it’s alt text. You can make it easier by giving descriptive file names to your images. The photos you taken from your camera and transferred to your computer have file names like IMG1234.jpg. But this names don’t describe anything about its content.

Therefore you need to give them some SEO friendly names before uploading it. You shouldn’t use generic file names like “beach.jpg”. It’s better to use more specific file names like “sandy-beach-spain.jpg”.  Then search engines can understand image contents and they will show them in more specific searches.

2. Compress and Scale Your Images

If your site is full with media like images and videos, it will take some time to load. Which is caused to get lower ranking in search engine results. Therefore when you are adding images, you need to take extra care of it. You need to Optimize Image SEO as a way that can be helped to improve page speed.

It’s better to compressing your images before uploading them to your site. You can use photo editing tool for it. We recommend to use online tool  TinyPNG.

You can also install an image compression tool such as Imagify.  Imagify compress pictures that you upload to your site.

The main thing they doing is reducing the file size. Lossy compression and Lossless compression are the main types of compressions.

• Lossy compression: This type of compression will reduce large amounts of data from your images. But the problem is it will impact to the quality of images.
• Lossless compression: This compression makes image files smaller. But it doesn’t impact its quality.

It’s important to compressing your photos. But you also need to use the correct size of images. WordPress generate different images sizes for photos that you upload like medium, large and thumbnail. If you add larger size images, it will give your site unnecessary burden.  If you are writing blog posts, using thumbnail is better.

You need to use the right format of images. You can use small sized JPG instead of a animated GIF or transparent PNG. It’s better to look at serving WebP images also.

3. Use Images in the Right Context

You need to place your images in the right position. It’s better them placing near contextual content. It will lead Google to understand image. Let’s take an example. Imagine you are going to write an article about the best attractive places in Paris. You can place some photos about places and landmarks of Paris in your post. But you need to place them in relevant sections.

You can add a text to introduce image just before showing it. If you add photos of any other place, not in Paris to your post, Google will think your content is not trustworthy. You can add captions to your images also. Then readers can understand what image is and where  it was taken. This will help to get better SEO.

4. Add Alt Text

Add alt text is one of important part of Optimize Image SEO. Alt text is a short text that describe your image content. Search engines use that alt text to understand what is in image. It also leads to appear in search results list. Alt text makes images accessible to users with screen readers also.

You can add alt text to your images using WordPress editor. Firstly click on your image and go to the settings panel in right. There will be a field to add alt text. You need to describe your images within one or two sentences and it should give more details about image.

Lets take an example again with above Paris article. You can use  “A white sand beach from the coast of Barcelona” as your alt text in your beach in coast of Barcelona image. It will improve SEO. If you use “beach”  instead, it wouldn’t give you much SEO. Because that doesn’t describe image perfectly.

5. Add Images to Your Sitemap

You can add your images to a existing sitemap or separate sitemap for your image. It doesn’t matter which one you use, it will boost SEO score. There are some tools that automatically add images to your site like Yoast plugin. You can do it manually using tool like WordPress sitemap plugin and SEO expert.

6. Use Relevant Keywords in Your Pinterest Images

Pinterest is a social media site that also works as a search engine. It helps users to find content like fashion tips, travel guides, recipes and more.

You can add any photos or images to Pinterest and link them to your site. It’s better to provide an informative title and description for each photo you upload. It’s a good idea to add your focus keyphrase in descriptions and titles. This will make your site more visible to Pinterest users who looking for related images. This works better sometimes than Optimize Image SEO.

All above-mentioned tips will help you to Optimize Image SEO. This will lead your website to improve its performance and get better SEO and higher rank in search engine results. The main things you need to consider in this regard is using descriptive image file names, compressing your images, and adding alt text to them. If you are active on Pinterest, you can work with them also.

Related Articles

• How to Find a Good Focus Keyphrase

Frequently Asked Questions

How do images influence you in browsing websites?

Images on websites can grab users attention better than text. That’s why images show up in search engines. According to the researches people are more likely to contact a business when an image shows up in search results.

What images are best for websites?

Both JPG and PNG images are good choices for the website. If you don’t have an idea to choose one from them, use JPG for photos and use PNG for logos. The reason is JPG is better compressed and it loads faster than PNG. But PNG will retain more detail and allows for a transparent background, If it take some time to be loaded.

Can you improve image quality?

Yes. You can improve image quality. If you wanna get high resolution images, the best way is using the right camera to take the photo. But when that’s not the option or when you’re looking to improve quality of older digital photos, you can use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for it. You can do experiment with Super Resolution and resampling to push your image quality as much as far you can.