When it comes to SEO for your blog, you're likely thinking about the content that you're writing up for each post. Do you have a meta description? Are you using the right keywords? Do you use enough keywords?
You get the point. ?
However! As you think about optimizing your posts for SEO, there's one facet of your posts that you shouldn't forgo—your images. No matter what your blogging niche is—be it food, lifestyle, fashion, travel—images are a quintessential part of your blog.
But how do you go about optimizing your images for SEO? That's what we're going to cover today!
Your image attributes
When we talk about images, it's important to think about what's going on behind the scenes in addition to the quality of the image itself. In particular, you'll want to focus on the below aspects.
Title
When we talk about the image title here, what we're referencing is the name of the file that's on your computer. You'll want to edit the name of the tile before you upload it into your blog post.
Or if you'd prefer, there's a plugin for that! The Media File Renamer plugin lets you rename your images right through WordPress so you don't have to worry about removing them from your site and re-uploading them. So handy! ?
This lets Google know what the image is actually showing you so that the Image search results can populate your image accordingly. Also, when someone right-clicks on your image and opens the image in a new tab, they'll see that the image title is something like “Chocolate Chip Cookies” instead of “DSC_1247” or “IMG_0005”. ?
Pinterest Title
Pinterest titles, on the other hand, are specifically geared towards… well, Pinterest! Pinterest wants users to be able to find the most relevant search result at first glance, so you should keep your titles short and concise (aka no need to write up a whole description here).
It's a great way of just focusing on the keywords in your title as well. And if you have Tasty Pins, we've made it super easy for you to enter your Pinterest titles for each image. That title will then be pulled into new Pins for scheduling with Pinterest and Tailwind. Magic! ✨
Note: Pinterest is still in the process of rolling out support for Pinterest titles. This latest update to Tasty Pins is to optimize compatibility for Pinterest titles in the future and to provide compatibility with current features in Tailwind.
Pinterest description
Next up is the Pinterest description, something that is near and dear to our hearts here at WP Tasty! ?
Pinterest descriptions are more descriptive than your alt text (which we'll talk about next) and it's what gets pulled in by Pinterest whenever someone Pins your image.
Pinterest descriptions help Pinterest users understand what they're looking at and it gives them a reason to click through to your page, so they should be descriptive of your post as a whole.
Like Pinterest titles, Tasty Pins make it super easy for you to add Pinterest descriptions to your images—the field stands at the ready for you to add your description in to each image!
We also recommend adding hashtags to your Pinterest descriptions as they give your Pins the best possible chance at getting discovered by those interested in seeing your content!
Alt text
Alternative text, or alt text for short, is a brief description of the image, and the image alone. This is the text that's read whenever someone who is visually impaired is using a screenreader on your site, so you want to think about how you can paint that image for them. ?️
With the example below, you'll see that we're going with alt text that specifically indicates that this is a close-up shot of the sweet potato curry in the white bowl. Nothing more, nothing less.
You don't want to describe your whole recipe here and use it as a means of promoting your post. Just think about what's in the image itself and let that guide you!
Image size
Everyone comes to expect high-resolution and high-quality images on websites nowadays. The thing is, those images can take up a lot of bandwidth on your site.
Because of how much bandwidth they take up, that can start to take a toll on your site's performance as you create more content on your blog. And that doesn't make Google very happy, either, which can impact your search rankings. Yipe! ?
Thankfully, we have the technology and plugins to help us get around that without sacrificing the quality of the images we worked so hard on.
Our recommendation is to go with a plugin like ShortPixel to compress the size of those images. ShortPixel allows you to optimize images in bulk with just one click. It doesn't get any easier than that!
In this example from ShortPixel, you can see the original image on the left and the optimized one on the right. You'll see that there isn’t really a huge quality difference, yet it was compressed by 82.99%!
That way, you get to keep your high-quality images without getting dinged for slow load times. Winner winner, chicken dinner! ?
One last thing to note: when compressing your images, we also recommend touching on the images outside of your posts. That means sidebar images, footer images, etc. Don't forget about those!
And that's the scoop on image optimization! ? Taking these small steps can go a long way in ensuring that your images are primed for SEO and that your load speed doesn't take a hit. Give it a try and let us know how it goes!
Interested in Tasty Pins?
If you’ve been wanting to optimize your images for SEO, Tasty Pins makes it easy! We’re always looking for new ways to improve Tasty Pins, and you can be confident that we’ll keep supporting you on your blogging journey.
Take a look at all Tasty Pins has to offer here: https://www.wptasty.com/tasty-pins
Also, don’t forget about our 14-day money-back guarantee! Trying Tasty Pins is risk-free, and we think you’ll really like it!
