subject: How To Optimize Blog Images For Better Search Engine Results [print this page] While pictures can certainly speak a thousand words, maybe six hundred of
these are indecipherable to search engine spiders because of the size and
properties of your pictures. The good news, however, is that theres
something you can do simply and quickly to optimize blog images and raise
your search engine ranking.
How to Optimize Blog Images for Better Search Engine Results
There are four basic ways to optimize blog images, and none of this will
require any advance technical skill in your part.
Tip #1 Reduce the Size
You might be wondering why its important to reduce the size of an image when
you can afford all the bandwidth and Internet speed you need for them to
appear on your website without hassles. But then again, keep in mind that you
re talking about what you can do and not what your readers can. Its possible
that a lot of your readers cant afford DSL or broadband connection. And even
if they do, its possible that some of them are unwilling to wait even for
more than fifteen seconds for the graphics of your website to finish
downloading.
And it is for these reasons that you have to reduce the size of your images.
You can reduce the size of your images either by cropping or resizing.
With cropping, you crop or cut unnecessary portions of your image to make
it smaller in size. Lets say you have a photo of a two kids building a
sandcastle on the beach. If you can make do with just one kid playing with
the sandcastle, you can cut out the other kid and be left with an instantly
smaller image. Or, you can cut away the distraction the endless strip of
white sand and blue water on the left and right side of the picture as well
as the azure sky on top and youll be left with a smaller photo and the
kids and the sandcastle still on center position. How youll crop your photo
depends on which part of the photo you really need.
Resizing is, on the other hand, your best option when you need everything in
the image. By shrinking the size of the image, everything becomes smaller in
detail, but at least the pictures still whole and complete!
Tip #2 Changing the Color
Images tend to be heavier in byte count because the amount of color data it
contains. Color however is easily rectified with a number of options. If you
are using digital imaging software tools like Adobe Photoshop for instance,
you can numerically change the level or quality of your image and the size of
your image file will proportionately go down. Changing it into black and
white can also reduce its size, and this sometimes makes for better pictures
depending on your subject.
Tip #3 Changing the Format
There are many types of image formats available nowadays, and some formats
may be heavier than others.
GIF Also known as Graphics Interchange Format, GIF images are generally
preferred over other image formats for Internet use. In fact, if youre using
Adobe Photoshop to modify your images, youll see that images for the
Internet are automatically saved in GIF.
JPEGS Also known as Joint Photographic Experts Group, JPEG images have one
distinct advantage over GIF images and thats how they are able to present
better looking photographs when there are more colors in it and with fine
graduation levels. In short, JPEG images are better for actual photos while
GIF images are better for illustrations.
PNG Also known for Portable Network Graphic, PNG images are a perfect
compromise for both GIF and JPEG images because they present adequate quality
of images without having any users sacrifice from image loss whenever they
save any image youve used in your blog.
Tip #4 Use Thumbnails
Thumbnails are easier to upload, and it will allow the person browsing your
blog to choose which image he really does want to see in its actual
proportions. Make sure that you provide the necessary link to its original
photos, of course!
Tip #5 Optimize It More with Words
Include keywords in your pictures captions, description, and name. This will
help search engine spiders rate them more accurately.
And lastly, use images only when words are not enough to get your meaning
