We get asked a bunch how to add images to a website. This is fine for most people to do themselves with these 2 key steps:
1. Compress Images:
First, the why: if you grab an image from your phone or other, often these images are 100x larger in file size than they need to be. This in turn slows down your website and acts as a signal to google that your website might not be the best experience and Google show show people another one.
- First if you’re reading this you’ll like need some software. Here is a free software that works well: https://www.gimp.org/
- Compress images ideally around 30kb-80kb (or for large images like top of page banners <300kb)
- Generally save images as JPEG – merits to other formats in some situations but this is the best all round format.
- Some how-to articles:
- Compressing with GIMP: https://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-tutorial-quickie-jpeg.html
- General compressing information: https://om4.com.au/client/preparing-image-files-before-uploading-with-wordpress/
Note: You might see some automated image compression websites but these never work like doing it the proper manual way. We recommend taking the time to learn to do it correctly.
2. Name Images For SEO:
When saving the new image name photos to be SEO friendly before upload (basically this makes it easy for google bots to read).
- Use a words your website visitors would likely type into google that are relevant to the page and image.
- Don’t use spaces between words, instead place a hyphen between each word e.g. for an image of a dog on the anaesthesia page you might name it “anaesthesia-vet-dog”
- More info: https://louisem.com/3596/how-to-name-images-seo
If you like help with this or other, contact us and we can take you though in more detail.
