subject: Optimizing Images for Your Photography Website [print this page] Optimizing Images for Your Photography Website
Here are the tips you need to do so effectivelyand at the same time, tips to help your image-heavy website run quickly.
Optimizing Images
Alt text. When an image on your website can't load properly (perhaps due to browser issues), you can specify what text should appear. You should choose this text carefully so that it provides a brief but accurate description of the photographand if it happens to use keywords, then that can only help your search engine rating.
Filenames. Most search engine algorithms look not only at your content, but also at the names of your files. If your filenames are all generic, they won't help raise your photography website in the rankings at all. Much as with alt text, give your image files names that are brief but descriptive so that search engines can accurately weigh your search rankingand your image search ranking.
Image Sitemap file. Setting up an Image Sitemap file tells Google about all your imagesincluding ones that it might not otherwise find. The first step is creating a regular web Sitemap, and then adding information about the images located on each web page. This makes it more likely that Google will index all (or at least most) of your images.
Write content that's displayed physically near your image. Any content included near an image will help search engines understand that purpose of that imageand, if you use keywords, boost your ratings at the same time.
Use standard file types. That means using JPEG, PNG, BMP, and GIF formats, and making sure that your filename extensions dovetail with the actual file type.
Faster loading times
Here are some tips for keeping free photography websites loading smoothly.
Reduce the sizes of your images. You almost certainly don't want any of your images available at full resolution on your websiteand neither does the company hosting your website. Determine what size they need to be on your website and reduce the size accordingly, using photo software. If you want visitors to be able to click on the file and see a higher resolution photograph, be sure to upload two files to your website: one small resolution for your index, and one larger one for the high resolution image. That way, visitors who don't want to see your photograph in higher resolution don't have to suffer the extra load time.
Save your photographs in image formats that make sense. For most photographs, that format will be JPEG. Photographs in JPEG format will be much smaller than the original, but look very much like it, showing little color loss. For images that are partially transparent, PNG is the best format; for non-photographic images, use GIFs, and for very small files or for thumbnails, use BMP.
Test your load times. There are a variety of free tools out there that will tell you how long your free photography website takes to load; use one of them, and keep using it as you tweak your files. You may find that some web pages are loading extremely slowly due to failing to reduce the size of one critical file. At any rate, having a way to measure how effective the changes you're making to optimize your images will make it far easier for you to make the correct choices.
By following these simple tips, you can create a photography websiteor art portfolio or digital portfoliowith a solid search engine rating and that loads quickly.
