Optimizing images in WordPress for SEO

In a time where we have cut-throat competition in almost every sector, it gets very crucial on our part to make sure our product, site, or business stands out. In a virtual world, you can make your content or site visible by optimizing it according to the latest algorithms. That’s the way you can rank better in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). People who use WordPress know that this platform allows you to build your own site from scratch and requires almost zero programming information. But creating a site through WordPress doesn’t mean the admin will get the highest rank on SERP. Again, there are many more pages that have quality content and can give you competition. For that part, you need to learn a few tricks about WordPress SEO. You need to understand which tools can help you coax more traffic to your content.

Now with time search engines are also revolutionizing to make it a more efficient experience for their users. One of the features which define this revolutionary take is ‘image search’. Around 1 billion searches are made on Google Images every day, and that number is quite big. That’s why people have initiated to optimize their images for WordPress SEO.

We have jotted down 10 really constructive tips to optimize images in WordPress for SEO. Go through each point and build a better optimization strategy.

     1. Use Images

The foremost tip to optimize your page through images is to add images to your site. Many people just believe in writing a good piece of content for their website and don’t pay much attention to the visual outlook of their pages. Images help your readers/visitors to understand better. They are a visual representation of your ideas which might not come across through words but definitely through images. As it is said, a picture is better than thousand words. Sometimes what your content fails to do, images can do that like a child’s play. Now, comes a very important clause to this trick. You can’t put TOO MANY IMAGES in your blog post either. If it has been advised to use images, that doesn’t mean we can overload our pages with that and don’t have any useful content for our readers.

     2. Choose The Right Image Format

Search engines are evolving every day. They are getting better each day. So, it will be wiser to choose the right image format for your site. A large image will make your website big and it will take a longer time to load. When everything in this virtual world is just one click away, you can not even take an extra second to revert to your user with apt information.

Images saved as JPG are usually smaller in size as compared to PNG and GIF. However, when you have to maintain the quality of the image you must use PNG images which are better for high-quality images, and WordPress Seo.

     3. SEO Friendly Alt Text

Before we start with how to put your Image Alt Text, let’s clear out the idea of what it is. Alt texts are generally used to describe your image to Google. You have to put words in Alt Text which describe your image best so that the search engine can rank your image better in searches. Now, the next important question that arises here is how to optimize your images through Alt Text. That’s quite simple, stick to the basic rule: elaborate with minimum words.

For example, do not just write ‘Books’ instead write ‘Steve Jobs Biography’. This way, you can make it more clear about what your image is. In case your image doesn’t load, at least the viewer can understand it by reading the Alt Text.

     4. Work on Your SEO Title and Description

By default, Google uses the title and description you have used on your page to show under the description space of an image. You must take care of what title and description you are putting on your page, whether it matches with the image or not.

     5. No Attachment Pages

When you use WordPress, in case you upload images on your site it creates a page for all the images being uploaded. These pages are called attachment pages. Now the thing is, these pages just display the bigger size version of your image. Search Engines usually consider such pages/sites as lower quality with little or no content. This could result in bringing down the ranking of your page. The good part about WordPress is that it is one of the most SEO-friendly CMS which gives you plenty of options to work on WordPress SEO. In this case, as well you can disable your attachment pages by using the plugin.

     6. Image Structured Data

Google Images categorize some images as a rich result and show them along with prominent badges on search result pages. You can get that badge for your images as well. All you need to do is work on adding structured data to your site. This way Google will consider your image as a rich result and rank it better with badges. These badges give quick info that what your page is all about which increases the chance of bringing traffic to your site. Google Images display schema markup for categories including products, videos, and recipes.

     7. Turn to Social Media Platforms 

We know this well that the amount of traffic social media has these days can’t be matched with any of the other online platforms. Social media has immense traffic always available for doing great business. Under your WordPress SEO strategy to optimize images, make sure you select the right images which can be shared on social media for your site. Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram are quite image-based, users are generally there to check out interesting stories or pages through images. So, that can be a great opportunity for you to optimize the kind of images you may use for your site and bring traffic through it.

     8. Speed Up Using Plugins

If your site has some large files and images, you can try up the idea of browser caching. The cache stores all the large files on the user’s web browser which can enhance the speed of your website. There also another way in which cache contributes to WordPress SEO is that when your site’s first page is loaded cache copies that page and then shows the copied version of your page to other users. In this way, it speeds up the load time of your site for the user. We are already in a time-space where everybody is in so much hurry that they need everything available online within seconds. So, this trick can do wonders for your SEO strategy.

    9. Compress The Size of Images

Google has already shared in their algorithm that speed of site matters in SEO. You have to build your website in a way that it takes less time to load everything online. That’s the key to ranking higher on any SERPs. Google uses this as a factor to serve the user with rich results including fast and relevant sites. One way through which you can speed up your site is by compressing the image size. This way your images used on the site will take lesser time to load without compressing with the quality. There are plenty of free online platforms available where you can compress your images before use.

     10. Create Mobile Friendly Site

Earlier the sites were accessible through browsers only until smartphones came. Now everything is just right in the hand of your user and a click away. So being a good and efficient website, it must be mobile-friendly. Google even ranks mobile-friendly sites even higher on search result pages. All you need to do is select a good responsive WordPress theme that can adapt to different sizes and shapes.

Try on these 10 tips to optimize images in WordPress for SEO and make your site even better.