Recently I’ve been asked a few times, why a site is slow, and or, doesn’t load properly. Or even the classic question; “Why isn’t my site on the first page of Google?”
There are plenty of possibles here, but one that most people seem to miss completely is getting the website images right.
You simply must upload your blog post images or portfolio images at the right size. Too small and they’ll be blurred. This is true of a WordPress website anyway as WordPress will resize the image to fit the space. Too large and the image may simply not load, making the page look awful.
The SEO implications of not getting your blog post images right are huge.
Here’s three things that I and hopefully anybody that does what I do would recommend
- Name the image the same as the title of the blog post
- Add the Alt tag and Title tag to the image.
- Make sure the image resolution is as low as possible.
What should you put in the Alt tag? Describe the image. That’s what it’s for. Googles algorithm can’t see images but it knows the image is there. If you don’t describe the image, i.e. don’t fill in the Alt tag, you’re not helping the user and therefore that’s bad for SEO. Remember that if a person with a visual impairment comes on to your site and they are using a screen reader. The Alt tag will be read to them.
If you upload images that are too large, this will adversely affect the site speed. Again, bad for SEO.
Getting your images right is a major factor in optimising your site for the search engines. You want to be as high up the Google index as possible don’t you?
So here we go, the $64000 question, what is the best size of an image for a blog post or a portfolio post…………
I upload mine at 1200 pixels wide and usually at about 600 pixels high. This enables me to set a reasonably low resolution so the picture will load quickly and still look ok. The only time I upload images larger than this is if I use a slider on a website. I am though using sliders less and less now as although, in my opinion the are great for getting a marketing message across, they can slow things down a bit.
If you’d like any help with images for your site or you just want a coffee and a chat, please feel free to phone me on 01603 383477 or fill in my contact form.