11 Image Tips To Optimize Your Website And Improve Website Conversion Rate

Have you ever seen a blog or an online store without any uploaded Images on it? I am sure your answer will be ‘No’. Right?

You will say, It is not possible to start a successful blog or online store without using images on it.

The blog will require images to describe the content. Whereas, the online store requires images to describe the product.

In both cases, you will require images to make your site more beautiful and appealing.

Next, Images are the key fundamental factor in the success of any website. If used properly then your site will rank higher in the search engine and will give a good return on your investment.

Trust me, you can improve your conversion rate by making proper use of images and thereby create a successful website.

Wondering? How to use Images on the website properly?

To get the answer to this question, please refer to the below article completely. This article will share the simple tweaks to optimize the images for the website. Trust, these techniques will definitely improve your website conversion rate.

Optimize Images For Websites

Website Optimization is not possible without optimizing the image for the website. Once you optimize your uploaded images, your half work is being done. Yes, the uploaded images contain the major part of the site optimization.

Next, have the following questions ever left you scratching your head?

• How To Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality?
• Do I Need To Add Alt Text To Images?
• JPEG or PNG or GIF – Which Image Format Is Better? etc.

If yes then you are in the right place. This article will answer all your questions.

So, What are we waiting for? Let’s start discussing these simple tweaks below.

Name Your Images Properly With Relevant Keyword In It

It is very easy to capture the photo and upload it directly on your website. But, in this case, the title of the image file will not be SEO Friendly. It will be something like DS20160724_125137.

Search Engines including Google can’t understand such text. It will simply ignore this kind of images and will not show them in the search engine.

Next, from a user point of view also, naming the image file is very important.

For example, if a user is looking for ‘Ford Car’ then he or she may type the Ford’ in the search bar.

In this case, if you are using the default name then your images will not appear in the search result. This is because the image file does not contain the relevant keyword in it.

To show your image files, you need to name your images properly and include a relevant keyword in it.

Adding Alt Text And Description To Images For Search Engine

Alt Text refers to Alternate Text. It appears when your image file does not render properly in the browser. You can refer to the below attached image for an example.

But wait. This is not the only purpose for which Alt text is added to the Images. Alt Text has another purpose also.

It helps search engines to understand the uploaded images on your site.

Yes, Google can’t read the text in Images. You need to tell her, What is your image all about? This can be done by adding Alt Text and Description to the Image file.

Next, as said earlier in this article, like while naming the file, you need to use relevant keyword in it. Similarly, you must include a relevant keyword while defining the Alt text and description to the images.

Choose The Correct Image Dimensions

The next tip in the list is choosing the correct image dimension. This is because of the below reasons

• A Wrong Image Dimension will make your webpage looks ugly. Just imagine, you are showing a small tiny image at the middle of the text, how it will look? Of course, it will not look good.
• A webpage may load more than one time if you don’t define the size of your images. The entire webpage will get reloaded on every single image file. Next, this will increase the loading time on your website.
• A Large file means heavy file. Hence, it will consume more space and takes more time to load on the screen.

Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality?

It’s a known fact. A large and heavy file will take more time to load on the screen. Hence, it will increase the loading time of your website.

This problem can be resolved by compressing the image file. You can compressed image without losing its quality.

Trust me, it will reduce the size of your image by more than 50%. It means, you 1 MB image file will get reduced to 500 Kb.

By reducing the image size of all the uploaded images, you can reduce the server load and thereby improve the loading speed of your website.

For more information on how to reduce the image size without losing quality, please refer the tutorial given at below link

Learn To Reduce Image Size Without Losing Quality

JPEG Vs GIF Vs PNG Format: Which One Is Better

Let us understand this with a very simple example. Below I have attached the same image file in three different formats. Just go through each format and check the size of the file.

PNG File Format

JPEF File Format

GIF File Format

From the above images, it is clearly observed that PNG format is bigger in size followed by JPEG and then GIF.

So, just imagine. What difference it will make if you replace the PNG format by GIF. It will reduce the server space by more than 70%.

But, this does not mean you should replace all the images by GIF format. Besides file size, there are many other factors that you need to take into consideration while selecting the best file format for the image file.

PNG or Portable Network Graphics will work best if you are looking for a transparent background. Yes, in PNG format, you will not find the white background in it. Instead, it will show your website background in it.

JPEG or Joint Photographic Experts Group work best for online photos or images. It will not take too much space and also maintain the quality of your image file. For a win-win situation, the JPEG format will always be the best choice. The only limitation in the file format is- ‘Transparency’. The JPEG format Images are not transparent. Instead, it has a white background in it.

GIF or Graphic Interchange Format will work best for logos, line-art with limited palettes and computer-generated images. It uses ‘lossy’ compression which means some quality is lost when the image is optimized or compressed. And, hence it is not used online for the images where you want to maintain the quality of the image file.

Use Relevant Images Only

If you are using irrelevant images assuming you will get traffic from it then you’re wrong. The use of irrelevant will not bring any traffic instead it will make your visitors or customers frustrated.

Let us understand this taking the same example of ‘Ford Car’ discussed earlier in this article.

What if, I tell you to search for ‘Ford Car’ in Google. Of course, you will type the keyword ‘Ford Car’ in the search bar. Next, the list of related images will appear on the screen of Google Images.

This list is prepared based on the Alt text added to the image file. ( If you remembered then we have already discussed this earlier in the article. Google can’t understand the image file and hence ALT text is added to it)

Now, ask a question yourself. Will you click on that ‘Cat’ given in the above image. Of course, your answer will a big ‘No’.

Taking the same example, just think, will your users click on your irrelevant images appearing in the search results. Once again, your answer will be a big ‘No’. Right?

Then just think, what is the use of using irrelevant images on your site?

I know, many of you are thinking that this logic applies to search engines only. But, this is wrong. This is applied everywhere.

If a user visits your site and finds irrelevant images on it then he or she will definitely get frustrated.

I hope it is clear now. You need to use relevant images if you really want to start a successful blog or website.

Submit Image Sitemap To Webmaster Account

Like a normal sitemap, the image sitemap will tell the search engine about images available on your website for crawling. It will share the metadata of your images to search engines.
Next, the process of submitting the image sitemap is the same as the normal sitemap. All you need to do is log in to the webmaster account and submit image a sitemap on it.

In the above snapshot, you can clearly see that there is a separate option available for Images. In this option, you can easily find the status ( like an Error, Indexation, etc.) of the submitted images easily.

In simple words, the image sitemap will help search engines to crawl and index your image files easily. Next, it will appear in the search results and thereby you will receive more traffic to your website through images.

Social Media Sharing on Pinterest and Instagram

Not the direct but this is an indirect approach to drive more traffic to your site through images.

By sharing your images on social media networks like Instagram, Pinterest, etc. you are optimizing your content to rank on the first page of the search results.

Yes, you heard it correctly. These social media sites are of high domain authority and hence rank higher in the search engine. Next, it will show your shared images on the first page and thereby redirect users to your website.

In simple words, you will share your images on social media site and in return, the social sites will show your images on the first page of the search results.

Now, when a user visits this social site and clicks on the image, he or she will get redirected to your site for the information.

EmbroideryShristi is getting around 117K monthly viewers on the Pinterest account. Now, even if he gets around 10% of the user redirected to their online store then it means they will around 12K monthly viewers from Pinterest at free of cost.

That’s It. This will now improve the conversion rate of your website.

Use Copyright Free Images On Your Website

Not direct but this has an indirect impact on your website or online store. This is because, if you use copyrighted images ( without purchasing the rights or asking permission) then there are high chances that you may get a legal notice from the real owner of the image.

Next, you need to immediately remove the image file from your site and thereby you will start getting 404 (Not Found) error for the removed image file.

At last, this will result in loss of traffic and may frustrate your users also.

You can refer to the below article to get the list of websites providing royalty-free images for your online business.

10 Websites to get Free Images for Your Blog Post

Use CDN ( Content Delivery Network) For Your Images

A content delivery network or content distribution network is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers.

By using CDN for your images, you can improve the loading time of your images. Now, your images will get download and load faster than the previous one.

But, always remember, the CDN networks should be used with proper caution. This is because, in the case of CDN, the images will not get loaded from your server. Instead, the CDN network will load it from the nearest server.

Next, in this case, it will also create backlinks for your images. If these backlinks are not properly managed then it may also impact the SEO ranking of your website.

Hence, the Content Delivery Network should be used with proper care. According to me, CDN will work best if you have a very large website whereas, for a small site, there is no need of using the CDN network for images.

Pro Tips: Do not follow the trend always. If everyone is using the CDN network ( to improve loading speed) does not mean even you should use it. Use it only if it is necessary.

Do Lots of Experiments To Check The Best Optimal Results For Your Website

Nothing is permanent. Even Google keeps on changing its search algorithm. It may be possible that what working today may not work tomorrow.

Next, it is not necessary that if a particular scenario or strategy work for my site will also work for your website or blog.

In the online industry, nothing can be standardized. The same strategy may have a different impact on similar kind of websites.

Hence, it is always advisable to keep experimenting with different strategies on a regular period.

If anything doesn’t work with your site then you should immediately stop implementing it.

For example, you can change the number of posts (with images) shown per webpage. It may be possible that by reducing the number of post (with images) on the page, you can improve the loading speed of your website.

In WordPress, there is an option to add a featured image to the post. More than 90% of the bloggers are using this option on their blog post. But, did you ever tried to check the blog post without a featured image?

It may be possible that your featured image is of large size and hence it is taking too much time to load it. Next, your blog post is not ranking higher on the search results.

Hence, you can improve the ranking of your blog post by removing this featured post.

Give a try and don’t forget to share your results with us in below comment box. We will be happy to hear from you.

The Final Words

Images are the key factor in starting of any successful website. If you optimized them properly then your half work is done. Trust me, your images, if used properly then it can change everything.

At last, if you think we have forgotten to mention in this article then feel free to share with us. You can share your message in the below comment box or else contact us personally through the Contact-Us page (the link given at the top of the homepage).