All search engines point out the need of images optimization. Why is it important?
First, the correct optimization of images can help you to attract an additional traffic, for example, from search by pictures.
Secondly, the wrong optimization can become the reason of the wrong display of the website in search and can even lead to the deterioration of the website ranging.
Complete recommendations for search engines you can receive here:
And now we will specify the major points which worth paying special attention.
1) Indexation
1) Pages with images should not be closed in robots.txt.
2) Pages should be indexed. Sometimes happens that the pages are open for indexation, but the search engine does not index them. In that case there is a probability, that the images which are on these pages, will not be indexed too.
3) Images themselves should not be closed from indexation in robots.txt or any other methods.
2) Image format
1) Search engines recommend to select the following formats: GIF, PNG or JPEG.
2) If the image is of the small size or is animated, then we recommend to select the GIF format.
3) If it is extremely important to upload images without compression or of high quality, it is necessary to select PNG. But when selecting this format, you should understand, that there can be problems with correct and fast loading of content. Surely, it is worth checking whether such images will be displayed correct on your website.
4) In other cases it is possible to use the JPG format.
5) Also, search engines do not recommend to use the BMP and TIFF formats.
3) Image sizes
Image sizes are registered by 2 methods:
1) By CMS
In any CMS there is an opportunity to register width and height of the image in the image editor. You can specify the desirable values there.
2) By attributes
If, for some reason, you cannot specify image sizes through CMS, there is an opportunity to register them by means of the width attributes (width) and height attributes (height).
Example:
<imgsrc=" photo1.jpg" width=" 800" height=" 600">
Optimum image size for your website will be the one, that allows to display true content to the user and search engines.
You can check whether you have problems with display of images, through a special Google service.
In the same way you will be able to find problems with optimization of images, and, as a rule, they concern compression.
Google recommends to use the following services:
http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/ – creates and optimizes GIF images;
http://jpegclub.org/jpegtran/ – optimizes JPEG images;
http://optipng.sourceforge.net – compresses PNG images without loss;
https://pngquant.org– compresses PNG images with losses.
There are also other services that allow to optimize the image:
http://www.punypng.com – allows to compress up to 10 images at a time;
https://tinypng.com – works only with the PNG format;
http://www.jpegmini.com – compress image size up to 5 times.
4) The alphabet in the name
1) The name of the image file is recommended to be written only in Latin characters to avoid problems with display of the file name.
2) If the name of the file was initially in Cyrillic characters (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, etc.), it should be transliterated according to the rules. For this purpose it is possible to use the following service http://translit.net.
5) Name of the file
The name of the image file should not contain spam or obscure unreadable characters.
— For the commercial websites
Example of the wrong versions of the name:
kupit-obuv-nedorogo-converse.jpg– spam option;
obuv4317892.png– low-informative option;
IMG436432.jpg– not informative option.
Example of the correct versions of the name:
kedi-convers-krasnie-80.jpg;
kedi-convers-krasnie-front.jpg.
— For the information websites
Example of the wrong versions of the name:
Louvre-Museum-photo-smotret.jpg– spam option;
Paris4317892.png – low-informative option;
IMG436432.jpg– not informative option.
Example of the correct versions of the name:
Louvre-Museum-At-Night.jpg;
Louvre-Museum-Winter.jpg;
Louvre-Museum-01.jpg;
Louvre-Museum-02.jpg.
6) Title
It is an important attribute during optimization. The text, which will be displayed when the user passes a cursor on the image, is written in Title.
— For the commercial websites
The correct option can look like:
title= «converse gym shoes red»
title= «All-Starkrasnye converse gym shoes model 80»
title =" converse gym shoes red top view"
Wrong option:
— Spam:
« converse gym shoes red to purchase title= cheap»
title=" converse gym shoes red, blue, yellow, green, photo, prices, response"
— Low-informative or automatic:
title= «gym shoes»
title= «footwear»
title= «footwear photo»
— Not informative:
title= «4312125»
«to purchase» title=
— For the information websites
The correct option can look like:
title= «Museum Louvre at Night»
title= «The Museum Louvre at Night from within»
title=" Museum Louvre in the winter"
title=" Museum Louvre in the winter 12.12.2008"
Wrong option:
— Spam:
title=" the Museum Louvre to watch a photo"
— Low-informative or automatic:
title= «France»
title= «museum»
— Not informative:
title= «4312125»
title= «tourist guide»
7) Alt
Alt is an alternative description of your file. When, for some reason, the image is not displayed on the website, the user sees the text placed in the Alt tag. If there is no text, and the tag is absent, the user, most likely, will see nothing. Sometimes, it can be the cause of different problems: search robots will index an empty page, users will see the wrong content and many other things. Thus, it can negatively influence the ranging of the website in search engines.
The important issue in use of alt and title – whether they can be identical? Yes, it is possible, especially if you have many same images. Such duplication will look better anyway, rather than the total absence any of tags.
If you decided not to duplicate, you can fill alt as follows:
alt =" converse gym shoes red fig. 1"
alt =" converse gym shoes red fig. 2"
alt= «Museum Louvre at the Night of Fig. 1»
alt= «Museum Louvre at the Night of Fig. 2»
or like this:
alt =" converse gym shoes red top view"
alt ="converse gym shoes red side view"
alt= «Museum Louvre at Night Panorama»
alt= «The Museum Louvre at Night from within»
The best option is to make the detailed description:
alt=" Popular model of converse all star gym shoes of red color — the top view"
alt=" Popular model of converse all star gym shoes of red color — a side view"
alt= «The Image of the Museum Louvre in Paris in the night from Lighting»
alt= «The Picture of the Museum Louvre Taken in the Winter in December, 2008»
Important! The text in alt tag can and even should contain keywords, but the main thing is that it does not look like spam.
Being guided by the specified principles, you can be sure that your website will meet the requirements of a search engine. The correct combination of all recommendations will allow you to receive a necessary topic traffic.
