According to research by Orbit Media Studios, entries with images have higher rate of interaction. Pretty obvious, plain text is really boring. Photos are key to reach the audience of social networks (especially Facebook), and according to the report, the brands on Facebook include images have an average interaction of 2.35 versus 1.71 comments for entries that contain only text.
We all know the importance of images to generate traffic from Google images, for example, but this requires optimization. A person can instantly recognize what an image is about, but the search engines, of course, no. Then, besides the image to have an exact title, we must put an alternative text that is descriptive. Both should be as fair as possible, because although this does not affect the seo it does the bounce rate, that search engines use to rank our site.
Charging Time Photo
What is vital for seo is the loading time of the images. Should be as small as possible, but not affecting the quality or aesthetics of the site. Arrive at an average. Users prefer larger pictures, load time asks us to go up small images (no more than 70kb). Do not forget that Google takes into account the loading time as one of the ranking factors and also, if we have a similar ranking to a competitor the loading time of the images may be a factor that makes us descend and remain below it .
Furthermore, we can not forget the users who connect through your mobile phone anywhere, for example in remote locations that do not have good signal. I live in the countryside and when I connect with mobile me it happens all the time. If photos are not loaded, to something else, change web and ready who wants to wait? :
Oh, aesthetic dilemma ... or seo? Both. Do not let the image is resized in the editor, go up the image to the desired size using an image editor and subámosla to the extent that we want to have, a full size, giving the possibility that the user can zoom in a page new.
The screen resolution for almost all devices are 72 pixels per inch, do not overdo this limit if we want the user to have problems loading the images. The type is RGB color to have better quality (Photoshop saves in that format by default). If you do not have Photoshop, a good choice and free is Gimp.
There are other techniques to optimize the loading time of images forms, eg applications or grouping several images that resize to mobile devices ending with the problem of cuts and delays in loading.
The PageSpeed complement Google Insights is a tool to optimize images, like the Yahoo online software Smush.It Radical Image Optimization or Tool (RIOT) that we can use as a pluggin.
JPG, GIF or PNG?
JPEG is always better, unless you require the image to be bottomless, in this case it is better to PNG 24 PNG 8. JPG has better quality with a smaller format. Never will we use GIF images for this product will be very large; GIF images we use only thumbnails, buttons etc..
How to optimize images
Many times it happens that we seek in Google images based on our tags and our product is not listed why? And how to optimize images?
-The image never has to have the default name of the camera.
-Us name the images according to the search terms most used by customers within our website.
-We optimize images with Alt tags products (name, description, model), but not for decorative photos (Google may penalize us for excessive optimization).
-Take pictures of our products from different angles (no influence on the seo, but it is good practice for the client to have an accurate view of the article). In each of these images, we add alt tags, for example:
(year-make-model-description-front)
(year-make-model-description-back)
(year-make-model-description-interior)
Using images to our website
One issue that concerns us all is the use of external images that do not belong to what extent we can use an image free images and how we put the credits on the photos that need it?
Of course it is always better to use our own pictures how much it costs to take the camera everywhere and take pictures to make our own file? Nothing, however, do not have time or do not have access to the footage we need. So the second option is to buy images, which are very cheap. On the banks of images we can buy packages of images at bargain prices. And if we can not afford, banks are always free images, but we run the risk of being too views, plus we have to be sure that we can use them safely.
Before using any images must read the license, and if not, does not necessarily mean it is an image that can be used publicly, let alone commercial. While some authors do not mind you using their photos on the web, yes resent being used to sell products. It makes sense: (
What photos can I use?
All rights reserved.
/ Copyright: you can not use it unless express permission.
Some rights reserved / Creative Commons: Use of the image is permitted with conditions, which you must read and follow the directions.
Creative Commons and similars: You must cite the author or the site where the image is taken. Best is to link from the publisher of the image to the site of the author, or put in the bottom of the photo credits.
How to know where it comes from an image
If you find an image on Google, comes with pearls and do not know if we can use or not, here's a trick used to know where it is from the picture:
Open Google Images, we click on the little picture of where the camera is, we click on "upload image" and jumped from our PC. Then we'll show a list of sites containing this image.
EYE: the top of the list is not necessarily the original site of the image. Searching the web we can find where it is from the photo and ask the author your consent to use your image, with attribution and credits.
For access, we can always make an exchange, a partnership, or give him something that is useful to the author of the image, eg advertising, links, etc.. To ask or propose anything lose and we can have a pleasant surprise, a great image to use with all of the law :=