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How To Optimize Images for the Web

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How To Optimize Images for the Web

Not only do images make your content more accessible, attractive, and engaging to users, but they’re important for SEO.

Understanding the basics of image optimization gives your content the best opportunity to succeed with SEO.

What is image optimization?

Image optimization involves creating and delivering high-quality images in the ideal format, size, and resolution to increase user engagement. It also involves accurately labeling images with metadata so search engine crawlers can read them and understand page context.

Enligt HTTP Archive, in 2018, images made up 21% of an average web page’s total weight, and that share likely has grown as image use has grown in recent years – they consume more bytes than any other part of the website. Thus, image size and complexity heavily impact site performance.

When you can reduce the size of images without compromising quality, page load times and the overall user experience improves. That can have a positive impact on search engine rankings, which further improves customer engagement, conversions, and customer retention.

TIP: Optimized images take up less storage space on your server, so site backups are completed more quickly faster.

Now, I’ll detail 10 ways to optimize your images.

1. Resize your images

Image size and file size are not the same things. Image size refers to the dimensions of an image (e.g., 1024 pixels by 680 pixels). File size is the storage space (e.g., 350 kilobytes).

Images with higher resolution and larger dimensions slow your page load times considerably. While they work well for printed materials, they should be scaled down and sized for the web.

TIP: Check out this guide to identify the best image sizes for social media platforms.

Save appropriate format

PNG, JPEG, and GIF each have their benefits. I recommend JPEG for images with lots of color and PNG for simple images.

Top image formats for web: PNG, JPEG, SVG, GIF

Bildkälla

Choose the right compression rate

How well an image is compressed affects both file size and quality – the smaller the file, the poorer the image quality.

Experiment with file types and compression rates to see what works best for each image. Many image-editing tools, like Adobe Photoshop, have a save-for-the-web option that automatically minimizes the file size while optimizing image quality.

If you don’t use Photoshop, these tools and plug-ins can help:

Image optimization tools

WordPress plug-ins for image optimization

Test speed

After you’ve optimized your images, how do you know whether your website page loading times are quick enough? Use one of these tools to test your site speed:

TIP: If your website content frequently changes, regularly check your load times.

2. Optimize image file names

Name the file with relevant, descriptive keywords to get the most SEO power. Include target keywords at the beginning and separate them with hyphens. Don’t use underscores because search engines don’t recognize them and won’t be able to “see” the words individually.

File names should make sense to both search engines and humans. For example, if the original name for an image of a woman in a hair salon is salon234.jpg, rename it with a clear and more descriptive title, such as woman-having-a-haircut-in-a-salon.jpg.

3. Use alt tags

Viewers may understand the image, but search engine spiders need clues. Without alternative text, search engines can’t index your image content accurately.

A good alt tag provides context and helps visually impaired users too. It’s also helpful when a glitch prevents an image from loading because search engines can read the alternative text to inform the page’s ranking. Write an alt tag in more detail than the file name. Aim for 10 to 15 to convey something about the image.

TIP: Brand-relevant terms can be in alt tags to boost visibility, but avoid keyword stuffing.

4. Make images mobile friendly

Google’s algorithm uses mobile-first indexing, so crawlers mainly look at a site’s mobile version. Thus, your images should be mobile friendly too.  How? The short answer is to ensure your images and website layout are responsive to the viewing device.

Some website templates and builders automatically resize images, but you can specify image size based on a device’s width. To do this, add a bit of custom CSS code to your website. Check out this simple guide to learn more about making your images responsive.

5. Optimize the image title

WordPress usually takes the image title from its file name. However, if you don’t use WordPress or the title doesn’t explain the image, update it with the appropriate keywords in the same way as file names.

Image titles are less important for SEO, but they can provide additional context to the alt text. Image titles are more helpful in terms of user engagement, so consider adding a brief call to action such as “buy now” or “download today.”

6. Include captions

Image captions – the words directly beneath images – may not directly impact SEO. But, unlike file names and alt text, captions are visible and can add to the website experience. Adding captions can have an indirect effect on SEO, improving the user experience and engagement metrics.

7. Use unique images

Använder sig av stock photos is fine, but they won’t necessarily help your search rankings because other websites likely use the same images. In the same way, unique written content is better for SEO, it’s a good idea to upload unique images.

8. Ensure text complements the images

The page copy can help search engines determine the relevancy of your images if your text doesn’t include enough information to explain an image, expand the description.

9. Add image structured data

Including structured data on your pages helps search engines display your images as rich results. Google Images supports structured data for product images, videos, and recipes. For example, it adds a badge to an image if it knows text, such as a recipe, accompanies it.

Använda sig av Google’s structured data general guidelines to learn how to add structured data to your pages within the search engine’s parameters.

10. Use site maps

Google explains a site map as “a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content.” In other words, it’s a file that contains a map of your site’s content.

Site maps are an important part of SEO because they tell search engines about your pages and website structure. To ensure that search engine crawlers notice every image – an infographic, meme, photo, video thumbnail, etc. – include them in your site map.

For each image entry, include the title, description, URL location, caption, and license information. For video entries, include the title, description, URL location, thumbnail URL, and raw video file URL.

If your website is hosted on WordPress, you can use Yoast SEO, which automatically adds visual content to a site map.

Make the most of your images

If you’re struggling to get your content noticed, keep these strategies in mind before you upload any image. These image optimization techniques will improve the likability of your content to both search engines and human users.

Please note: All tools mentioned are identified by the author. If you have a tool to suggest, please add it in the comments.

Vill du ha fler tips, insikter och exempel på innehållsmarknadsföring? Prenumerera till arbetsdags- eller veckomail från CMI.

Omslagsbild av Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Three Irish Small Business Ideas that Could Be US Hits

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Den ultimata guiden för att ta full kontroll över din Google-företagsprofil och NMX

Författarens åsikter är helt hans eller hennes egna (exklusive den osannolika händelsen av hypnos) och återspeglar kanske inte alltid Moz åsikter.

“Knitting the Islands”, by Miriam Ellis

A happy and lucky St. Patrick’s day to all my readers! I’ve seen it again and again that small and local businesses became successful due to a great inspiration and some little happenstance bit of luck that got them noticed. Today, I’d like to celebrate with you by offering a shamrock of three ideas I’ve seen taking off in my mother country of Ireland. You may not replicate the exact business model, but do take away the underlying concepts which I strongly believe could succeed in the US. I’ll also point out how you can help luck along with a little creative marketing. Share this article with your team for brainstorming new campaigns, or with anyone in your life who wishes they could start a small business

Finding the “grá”

Ever wondered how to say “I love you” in Irish? One way is “tá grá agam duit” (taw graw ah-gum duts/ditch). It’s not uncommon to hear Irish folk saying they have a “grá” for something when speaking English, and to me, the word not only conveys love but a kind of longing. When people have a “grá” for some really good bread, or a trip to the seaside, or a warm coat they saw in a shop window, it’s what we might call “consumer demand” in American marketing lingo. Pay attention right now, and you may be starting to notice people in the US and elsewhere expressing a special kind of “grá for a different life. Recently, such a thread stood out to me on Twitter, started by author and founder Dave Gerhardt.

skärmdump av tweet där författare uttrycker trötthet på teknik och säger att han skulle vilja bygga något lokalt i sitt samhälle.

Software, of course, isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and the more we see of the current state of AI chat, the less many analysts are convinced that it’s going to be a major disruptor at present, but what I observe in this tweet and the replies to it is that people are starting to get tired of the one-dimensional confines of too much screen time. Wanting a satisfying local life and community “IRL” is a great grá statement. Americans are deeply attached to our tech, but more and more, I’m running across peers talking about having an “analog life”, wishing their kids would become “luddites”, or wondering how an off-grid life would feel for their families. More simply put, many people would like to experience more satisfaction in what is right around them.

This dynamic is, in fact, tailor-made for small business entrepreneurs, so let’s look at these three aspirational concepts to see if you or your clients have got a “grá” tugging at you for any of them.

1. Be about life

Skärmdump av en webbplats som säljer utrullning av frömattor för vilda blommor för att ersätta gräsmattor.

Within living memory, it was the mark of respectability to have your little weedless patch of green lawn. You constantly cut the grass to keep it under tight control. You yanked out every dandelion – or worse – poisoned your own nest with herbicides. Think things never change for the better? I hear you, but check out TheIrishGardener because now, instead of rolling out bundles of monocrop sod, the Irish are carpeting the outdoors with native wildflower matts. One dimension isn’t enough anymore – folk want flowers and bees and moths and butterflies and bugs and more of everything alive. Yard by yard, they are reinvigorating essential ecosystems. Clever wildflower seed sellers are now marketing their products like seed matts and seed bombs not just to homeowners but as wedding favors, holiday gifts, classroom projects, and more.

There’s been such a base trend in US marketing in which we try to sell things to our neighbors by scaring them. Our ads are full of guns, screaming, threats, panic, anxiety, and danger and it’s very weird contrasting this with the ads I listen to on Irish media which seem to be largely focused on green energy, eating nice things, and enjoying the arts.

Could your great small business reject fear-and-shock-based marketing and instead hinge on beauty and satisfaction in life? We do have that old adage of drawing more flies with honey than vinegar, and if you can align your business with the very strong yearning for life to be abundant, varied, diverse, interesting, healthy, and fun, I think you’re moving away from the old lifeless lawns to the new thriving garden.

2. Be about locality

Skärmdump av en webbplats som visar skörden av irländsk tång.

There’s only one place you can get real Irish seaweed – from the coasts of the country, of course! WildIrishSeaWeeds.com is one of those rare businesses that has seen the potential in a gift of nature that many might pass by without noticing. Seaweed is practically a miracle – you can eat it, bathe in it, and use it as a very carbon-friendly fertilizer that elders have always sworn by. What was once mainly a snack remembered fondly by children is now becoming a serious green industry in Ireland, and not far from where I live, I see a Californian company testing whether they can latch onto a similar demand in the US.

What is overlooked where you live? Is it something that can only be gotten in your local area? Something people used to love but are forgetting about now? Maybe it’s a local food source that’s starting to disappear because no one is using it anymore, or maybe its a skilled craft like basketmaking in a local style, baking or brewing a regional speciality, knitting or sewing a heritage garment, compounding an old-time remedy. Maybe it’s reviving a tradition that used to anchor your community. Could your great small business idea simply be about reconnecting neighbors with what’s special about where you live…a place that may have started to have vanished in our collective consciousness because the screens are blocking the view?

3. Be about people’s simplest pleasures

Krögare som odlar potatis på balkongen ovanför sin anläggning.

Our SEO lives may be consumed with ChatGPT right now, or GA4, or what will happen next on or to Twitter, but Padraic Óg Gallagher is up on the balcony of his restaurant, growing real Irish potatoes for his Boxty House in Dublin. If you’ve never had the luck to eat boxty, it’s a delicious potato cake, beloved enough in Ireland to be the inspiration behind a restaurant that’s seen such success, it was able to open a second location. Boxty is not fancy. It’s something your mother would make you from leftovers, something treasured from childhood, the memory of which warms your very soul.

If we look again at Dave Gerhardt’s Twitter thread, he’s not longing for a yacht, nor a manion, nor a pot of gold. He just wants the simple pleasure you get from “building in your community.” Most of us can be plenty happy with just enough, and rather than creating a business idea around elite luxury, consider what you might offer that actually delivers human contentment to the most people. A basic kitchen good that isn’t made well any more? A handcrafted walking stick? A cozy bookshop, a guided tour for visitors, your grandmother’s pecan pie, a wooden toy, a cloth doll, a sturdy garden implement, a bayberry candle, a regional herbal tea?

The simpler and better quality your idea, the more of a welcome change it could be for customers increasingly expressing fatigue from low-quality, mass-produced, and very limited options. America’s Vermont Country Store has been outstandingly successful in helping people relocate fundamental merchandise they can’t find anymore. Study their approach.

Creative marketing of your small business idea

Kreativitet i ett gammalt upplyst manuskript

What can you do to catch the eye of your audience? You’ve probably guessed that I’m going to say that, no matter how small your local business, you’ve got to have a website and local business listings. 30 years ago, I would have said this about the telephone book, and however much we may long for more off-screen time, we’ve got to concede that the web makes it so easy to be found! So yes, publicera the best website you can budget for, build out your Google Business Profile och other listings, and invest all you can in learning about digital reputation management. It will help you achieve your goals.

That being said, the room there is beyond the web for creative marketing could fill all the pages of the Book of Kells. If you’re starting out quite small, try these low-tech approaches to getting the word out about your new business idea in your community:

  • Ask an established business owner to host you as a pop-up shop inside their store, perhaps for tourist season or the holidays.

  • If you produce enough volume, meet with local shop owners to discover whether your product could win a permanent place on their shelves.

  • Approach local reporters with the most succinct, newsworthy angle of your business to seek press.

  • Real-world community message boards finns fortfarande i vissa städer. Använd dem.

  • Sätt en skylt utanför ditt hus eller i fönstret i din lägenhet. Inget rum? Be lokala tjänstemän om tillåtelse att sätta upp en skylt på en ledig tomt eller i ett gathörn där du har sett andra skyltar uppsatta. Var redo att sälja dem om hur din idé gynnar samhället.

  • Undersök lokala bestämmelser om att hänga reklamblad runt om i staden.

  • Undersök om det finns en möjlighet för dig att inkluderas i befintliga tryckta kataloger. 90 miljoner amerikaner köpa något från en katalog årligen, och även när Internet har blivit så etablerat i våra liv, har katalogshopping fortsatt att trend uppåt.

  • Hittade eller gå med i en lokal företagsorganisation för brainstorming, nätverkande och korsförsäljning.

  • Samordna med andra mikroföretagare för att vara värd för en delad fest i en lokal park och bekanta ditt samhälle med din närvaro och dina erbjudanden.

  • Sponsra lokala lag, evenemang och människor och bli citerad för det både online och offline.

  • Om ditt samhälle fortfarande har en lokal radiostation, försök att komma på den, antingen med en annons eller som gäst, för att nå 82.5% av amerikanska vuxna.

  • Om du bor i ett område som gynnas av turister, kontakta det lokala besökscentret för att se hur du blir listad i deras publikationer.

  • Annonsera i utskick och bulletiner från lokala gudstjänsthus och skolor.

  • Om det du producerar relaterar till någon typ av mat, musik, konst, kultur eller lokal festival, delta i det.

Irländsk stämpel med en infödd gärdsmygfågel.

Jag avslutar idag med detta berömda irländska ordspråk, eftersom det verkar rätt för detta ögonblick i Amerika, där myten om oändlig tillväxt och farorna med en okontrollerad aptit på lyx inte har gjort någon tjänst för ekonomi eller miljö hela vårt folk måste leva i. Den irländska frasen, "Cé gur beag díol, caithfidh sé a sholáthar" har traditionellt använts för att påminna oss om att även den lilla gärdsmyg måste arbeta hårt för att försörja sig själv – ett scenario som varje småföretagare och lokala företagsmarknadsförare lätt kan relatera till.

Men jag börjar se en dubbel betydelse i den här frasen, och nya affärstrender i Irland hjälper mig att se det: ett mer hållbart sätt att grunda ett företag kan vara att inte fråga hur mycket du vill ha, utan hur lite du faktiskt behöver för att bli nöjd. SEOs överallt vet redan att det är en bästa praxis att få kunder att definiera hur framgång ser ut innan ett projekt börjar så att alla parter kan se när ett mål har uppnåtts. För de flesta småföretagare som inte vill bli storföretagare kommer prestationer helt enkelt att betyda något i stil med att kunna betala sig själva och sin personal tillräckligt för att ha ett blygsamt, bra liv. För mig är detta erkännande viktigt just nu, eftersom de flesta kunder är på jakt efter samma sak – att ha precis tillräckligt.

Oavsett om det är över sparsamhet på Irland eller sparsamhet i Amerika, återförråd i Drogheda eller återlagring i Simi Valley, äta lokalt och ekologiskt kl Moyleabbey Farm i Kildare eller kl Waxwing Farm i Washington, eller bevara traditionellt hantverk som håller länge den sidan av vattnet eller på detta, tandemtrender indikerar ett sökande efter ett enklare och bättre liv. 57% av amerikaner säga att de handlar litet för att hålla pengarna lokalt, och det går inte att överdriva hur mycket både närliggande ekonomi och det globala klimatet drar nytta av detta tillvägagångssätt. Om du har bestämt dig för att 2023 är året att luta sig in på de nya/gamla sätten genom att starta eller marknadsföra småföretag, skulle jag säga att turen kan vara på din sida!



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En omfattande guide till LinkedIn-sponsrade uppdateringar

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En omfattande guide till LinkedIn-sponsrade uppdateringar

Även om det ofta är underskattat eller reducerat till en "nätverksplattform", har LinkedIn potentialen att hjälpa dig att driva trafik till din webbplats, öka varumärkesmedvetenheten och öka dina intäkter. Hur? Genom LinkedIn sponsrade uppdateringar eller annonser.

(mer …)

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Salesforce, Google-partner för lokal handel

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Salesforce, Google-partner för lokal handel

Salesforce har annonserat en integration mellan Salesforce Commerce Cloud och Google Merchant Center för att hjälpa handlare att lyfta fram tillgängligheten av produkter i butik. Flytten bygger på Salesforce-data som tyder på både den utbredda användningen av onlinesökning före fysiska butiksbesök och en ökad sannolikhet för shoppingresor när konsumenterna kan se att en butik har en vara i lager.

Med denna nya integration kommer handlare som använder Commerce Cloud att kunna vända sig lokala lagerdata i lokala produktannonser på Google Sök och Google Maps och på fliken Shopping.

Varför vi bryr oss. Skillnaden mellan digital och verklig handel fortsätter att kollapsa. De online shoppingbeteenden som exploderade under pandemin kommer att vara med oss under överskådlig framtid, men det betyder inte att butiksbesök är ett minne blott.

Snarare letar konsumenter efter sömlösa kopplingar mellan en onlineproduktupptäcktsupplevelse och personliga köp. Denna integration strävar efter att stödja detta mål på en detaljerad lokal nivå.

Salesforce-data som stöder flytten kan vara hittas här.

Inbädda handel i upptäckt. Integrationen flätar också samman online upptäckt och handelsupplevelsen. Precis som många handlare nu försöker tillhandahålla en friktionsfri övergång från att hitta en produkt online till att göra ett digitalt köp, ser detta möjligheten att koppla upptäckt med personlig shopping.

Detta drag parar sig med det senaste tillkännagivandet av Salesforces Einstein GPT for Commerce som kombinerar proprietära och generativa AI-modeller med realtidsdata som kunddemografisk data och shoppinghistorik, för att automatisera och skräddarsy rekommendationer för kunder i Commerce Cloud.

Gräv djupare: En sammanfattning av de senaste AI-drivna marknadsföringsteknologierna


Skaffa MarTech! Dagligen. Fri. I din inkorg.



Om författaren

Kim Davis

Kim Davis är redaktionschef för MarTech. Född i London, men en New Yorker i över två decennier, började Kim täcka företagsprogramvara för tio år sedan. Hans erfarenhet omfattar SaaS för företaget, digital-annons-datadriven stadsplanering och tillämpningar av SaaS, digital teknik och data i marknadsföringsområdet.

Han skrev först om marknadsföringsteknologi som redaktör för Haymarkets The Hub, en dedikerad marknadsföringsteknologiwebbplats, som sedan blev en kanal på det etablerade direktmarknadsföringsmärket DMN. Kim började på DMN proper 2016, som senior redaktör, och blev Executive Editor, sedan chefredaktör en position som han hade till januari 2020.

Innan han arbetade med teknisk journalistik var Kim Associate Editor på en hyperlokal nyhetssajt i New York Times, The Local: East Village, och har tidigare arbetat som redaktör för en akademisk publikation och som musikjournalist. Han har skrivit hundratals New York restaurangrecensioner för en personlig blogg och har varit en och annan gästbidragsgivare till Eater.

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