5 Image SEO Best Practices for 2023

Images play a significant role in attracting and retaining user attention. More importantly, they also have a huge impact on your website’s search engine ranking. Remember, you only have 10 seconds to hook them. Therefore, having a well-optimized image SEO strategy can make a huge difference. It can keep your website lost in the vast sea of online content or standing out in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Optimizing your images for both search engines and users can increase your chances of being seen by your target audience. Once done right, you drive more traffic to your website. This gives you an opportunity to turn leads into conversions. 

Ultimately, you provide better customer satisfaction and enjoy a better return on investment. 

Best Practices for Image SEO

Here are the five best practices you should consider for your image SEO.

1. Use the Correct Format

The image format you use can affect your website’s loading speed, which is a critical ranking factor. JPEG and PNG formats are the usual formats used on websites. However, JPEG is best for photographs, while PNG is ideal for graphics, logos, and illustrations.

A word of caution, though. PNG files can give you high-quality images but often have larger file sizes, slowing down your loading speed. 

2. Make it Unique

Using unique images can improve your website’s user engagement and experience and help your website’s SEO. Search engines prefer unique and high-quality images over stock images.

Unique images can also help your website stand out in SERPs. They can improve your website’s click-through rate (CTR), a good metric to measure to assess performance.

3. Add Relevant Alt Text

Alt text is the textual description of an image. It appears when the image does not load or display. Alt text is essential for users with disabilities who use screen readers to navigate websites. But it is also crucial for SEO, as search engines use alt text to understand the content of an image.

Adding relevant alt text can help search engines understand the context of the image and the surrounding content.

4. Optimize for Mobile Devices

Over half of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. With more people using their smartphones to browse just about anything, sites need to leverage this opportunity. Their sites must be mobile-optimized to provide the best user experience possible.

How does image SEO factor in here? Optimization is particularly important because mobile devices often have smaller screens and slower internet speeds. If your images don’t adjust to screen size, they may take too long to load. When they do load, they appear distorted or pixelated or do not fit properly on the screen. This can result in a frustrating user experience, leading to increased bounce rates and lower engagement.

Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing. This means it will primarily use the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing and ranking purposes. This makes mobile optimization, including image optimization, even more critical for improving your website’s search engine ranking.

Consider using smaller image file sizes, using responsive design techniques, and optimizing images for high pixel-density displays. This way, you can ensure that your images load quickly. You also have better displays that give visitors a seamless user experience no matter their device.

5. Compress Images

Compressing images is crucial for website loading speed and, therefore, SEO. Large image files can slow down your website’s loading speed. When you compress a JPEG file, note that you will lose some of the quality. If this happens, use an image upscaler. This will help you maintain the quality and improve the user experience at the same time. 

Key Takeaways

Image SEO is an essential aspect of digital marketing that should not be overlooked. In addition to these best practices, there are other factors to consider when it comes to image SEO.

For example, using descriptive file names, adding image captions, and using structured data markup can also improve your website’s image SEO.

• Follow the correct format to improve your website’s loading speed.
• Use unique images to improve user engagement and stand out in SERPs.
• Add relevant alt text to improve your website’s SEO and increase the chances of ranking for relevant search queries.
• Optimize your images for mobile devices to improve user experience and engagement.
• Compress images to improve your website’s loading speed and SEO.