Image Optimization & SEO Rankings. What’s the Correlation & How to Achieve It? 

There are many proven ways of improving website user experiences and SEO rankings. Although there are hundreds of them, today, we would love to dwell on image optimization. Whether you’re a web developer, designer or content writer, the choice of your images influences the website’s performances. 

By focusing on image optimization, you not only improve core web vitals but the site’s load speed as well. All in all, you cultivate a path for a better search engine results page (SERP). 

 
What Image Optimization Means! 

Image optimization is the action of crafting superior images, yet in a compressed (smallest) size and with the right resolution, dimension, and format. It also simply relates to the procedure of creating high-quality images that better facilitates the page’s load speed and performance. 

With Image Optimization, you may only focus on delivering quality images but improves website engagement, conversion rate, user experience, and SEO Rankings. 

Image Optimization & SEO Rankings 

Humans better interact with visuals, and when your combo includes quality content, the best user engagement is assured. Websites with superior images or photos require little elaboration because the images speak volumes. 

2021’s website ranking factors will revolve around page load speed and user experience. Over-sized images are a downside to a good website. When it comes to a poor internet connection, matters become worse. By assessing the bounce rates on different websites, it was clear that slow load speed is one of the major causes. 

Also, mobile phone users expect a page to load within one second. Anything above this is termed as a poor user experience. Nevertheless, the conversion rate for the website is directly impacted. This all culminates into low ranks and hence undesired SEO (Search Engine Optimization) performance.  

Working on Image Optimization the Right Way! 

Several factors come to play for getting it right with image optimization. These include; 

Image Format 

Are you aware that every image format serves a unique goal? PNG is ideal for logos and flat images, whereas JPEG for complex colouring and real-world images. GIF then comes in for low-resolution images, animated graphics, and minor images. 

WebP is best for delivering the utmost compression and image quality. TIFF can be selected in case you desire the best image quality with large size print graphics.  

AVIF then sums them all with an outstanding compression ratio. Another alternative is serving images in AVIF and WebP (next-generation formats).  

Dimension (Height & Width) 

Consider the popular desktop screen resolutions (2,560 pixels in width). You may have to save different image versions depending on the visual needs of a page or user’s engagement point (smartphone, desktop, or tablet).      

Image CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) 

CDN is an excellent approach to optimized images. Image CDNs prioritize delivering optimized images that are fast as well. CDNs provide different image transformations specified via the URL string. With hundreds of transformations, CDN results in a remarkable slash in image size. 

Note that apart from what is mentioned above, other crucial factors include offering mobile phone responsive design and getting Hotlink protection from your CDN and Leverage Browser Caching. You can integrate image CDN at a reasonable rate to achieve quality results.