Just like all the other parts of your website, your images need to be optimized for search engines. In fact if anything they require more care be taken as unlike the text on your website, search engines can’t ‘see’ the content of your images.
If you want to start to improve the image SEO on your website, there are a few important tips that you will want to make it a point to use:
Use descriptive file names for images
Try to steer clear of generic file names for images, and instead use file names that are more descriptive and target specific keywords. For example instead of photo1149.jpg you should try to name your image something like Labrador-retriever-puppy.jpg.
Keep in mind that hyphens (-) in the file name indicate spaces, while underscores (_) do not.
Add alt text
Every image that you add should contain alt text that will basically be displayed if the image fails to load. More importantly it can help provide more context for search engines, and you can add your keywords in it if appropriate.
At the end of the day the alt text should be used to describe the image in plain words, with as much detail as possible. The only exception to that rule is for images that are purely decorative and have no context, in which case you can skip the alt text.
Optimize the file size
All the images that you publish should be optimized in terms of their file size. That can be done in several ways, but one is to make sure the image resolution is close to the resolution that it will be displayed in. The last thing that you want is to display a high resolution image at a much smaller resolution, as that will just make your website load more slowly and affect its SEO.
On top of that if you’re trying to learn how to make an image background transparent as a PNG or GIF using Movavi Photo Editor for example, you should be careful. The file size GIFs in particular can be quite large, and so you should only use them in specific cases.
Use sitemaps or structured data
Image sitemaps can notify search engines regarding where images are located, and provide additional details such as its title, caption, license, and geo location. In short, it will give search engines more information about the image – which is always good for SEO.
In contrast structured data for images can provide even more details for specific types of images – namely products or recipes. It is vital if you want your image to be listed effectively with rich results in Google’s Image search.
By following these tips your images and the webpages they are published on should perform better on search engines. In fact you may even find that you start to gain significant traction on Google’s Image search in particular – which could be a huge source of traffic in its own right.