Images used properly can really enhance the look of your web page. However, every image has to be loaded into the browser to display your page properly, slowing execution time. Ensure you have done image optimisation on every one of your images and each contains ALT tag SEO which provides both visitors and search engines a textual representation of your image.
ALT Tag SEO
Alt Tags stand for Alternate Text and offer visitors and search engines a text-representation of the image. As we know, search engines are unable to read images, and so it makes great sense to tell them what the image is. This also has a small SEO benefit as yet again it offers another opportunity to use your Keywords within your web page. Stuffing these tags full of keywords however is not recommended. Firstly, these tags are displayed by mobile viewers and browsers when the images are unavailable. They also appear when the mouse hovers over an image on certain browsers. Keyword-stuffing ALT tag SEO does nothing to increase the credibility of your website, or trust of your visitors. Just tell them what it is and if you can get your keywords in, great.
Images
Images used well can make a website look great, but as with everything, there is a price to pay. Every image has to be downloaded by your browser before that page can be displayed properly. This takes time and depending on your visitor´s Internet connection speed, can seriously reduce the speed that your website appears. If it takes too long, they are just going to go elsewhere. For this reason, images should be used sparingly, and then only after they have been optimised to their smallest possible file size.
Image Optimisation
An optimised image is one that has been compressed in file size (Kb) and also physical size. If you are going to use an image, make its physical size the size that it is going to be displayed on the web page. If you are going to display a thumbnail, it is a bit of an overkill to use an image the size of a postcard. This can reduce its file size dramatically thus increasing its download speed. Most images can further be reduced in file size by compressing them. Just pop your image into your favourite image/photo program and if you don´t know how to do it, simply search in the help files for the procedure.
Social Matador Tip
Include an Alt Tag SEO and image optimisation for every image on your web page.
