4 Best Practices for Optimizing Your Business Website Images:
Whenever we choose and upload images to the business websites we build, there are several practices we follow to make sure they are optimized for each site and help promote our clients’ businesses. If you’re building your own business site, here are our top 4 best practices tips for getting the most out of your business website images:
1. Choose Compelling, Original Photos
If you had to choose a company based on their business website images, which would you trust more: one with generic stock images you’ve seen before, or one with photos showing their business and employees?
We always encourage people to hire a photographer and get professional photos for their websites. Showing real photos of your business helps you build trust with potential customers who want to know more about you before making a purchase. However, we realize that’s not always a possibility due to the price. We use a lot of stock photos ourselves since we serve many smaller businesses that don’t have room for it in their budget.
But even if you have to start with stock photos, you can always add in more original photos over time–pictures of jobs you’ve completed, employees at work, happy clients, and other behind-the-scenes moments. We work with two great local photographers here in the Sarasota/Venice/North Port area, Dora Diamond Photography and Gemma Schaefer Photography, who can help you take and choose great photos for your business’ website.
You can also still make your website feel original and compelling even with stock photos. Avoid generic-looking images at all costs and choose unique photos that feel realistic and explore different camera angles (here’s a great guide on choosing worthwhile stock photos). Make sure your photos also share a similar visual ‘feel’ (i.e. are they all very saturated or muted in color? Whimsical or serious?) so that your whole website feels cohesive and not cobbled together. Lastly, check your competitors’ websites to make sure you’re not using any of the same images they are! (You’d be surprised how often some stock photos get used!)
If you need stock photos, here is a list of 8 stock websites that offer a free commercial license on their photos: https://zapier.com/blog/best-free-stock-photos
2. Select Optimal Size
When choosing photos, you want them to be big/high resolution enough to be crisp and clear. However, large photo sizes can also slow down your website and take longer for the page to load, which can frustrate potential customers.
For background images that touch both sides of the page, 1200-1400 pixels wide should be plenty big enough to be clear without taking up too much room. For photos mixed in among your text, we recommend around 400-800 pixels wide for landscape oriented photos and 400-800 pixels for portrait oriented photos.
If your images are too big, you can easily reduce them in Preview (on Mac), the photos app in Windows, Canva, Photoshop, or other photo editing software. However, when images are too small, you cannot size them up–you’ll have to search for a new, larger photo.
3.Title Images for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” is the process of using key words to make content/images easier for search engines like Google to find. For photos, a great way to do this is to name photos with a clear description of what’s going on in the image.
While you may be tempted to add as many related keywords as you can, for example, “Quality Auto Service, Oil Change, Engine Replacement, Suspension Repair, AC Repair,” this is called “keyword stuffing” and can actually get you blacklisted on Google.
Instead, start with a descriptive sentence that would help someone imagine what is in the photo. For example, a basic description for this photo could be: “young couple poses in front their newly purchased home.”
Then, to make the image more pertinent to your content, add a few keywords you want to highlight and expand on the story the image tells. For example, we used this photo for a home renovation company in Central Maryland (Classic Remodeling Inc) that specializes in replacing windows and doors. To highlight their location (a very important keyword for brick-and-mortar businesses) and their specialty, we titled the photo: “Couple in front of Central Maryland home with new windows and doors.”
Be descriptive, but also try to be brief. We recommended 125 characters or less, which will make sure photos upload properly, and also help you with the next section as well.
4. Add Alt Text
Adding a good visual description in your image title is not only good for SEO but it’s incredibly important for making your website accessible to visually impaired customers. Alt text (short for alternative text) is an additional line of information added to images that is picked up by screen reader software and tells visually impaired visitors what is going on in the image. To ensure your website is fully accessible to all potential customers, always add an alt text description to your images.
If you wrote a descriptive image title like we talked about above, that title is usually perfect for your alt text description as well (125 characters is the limit of what many screen readers can read, which is why we suggest keeping image titles 125 characters or less). So, all you need to do then is copy that the same description in the alt text box. In WordPress, this is located right below the basic image information when you click on a photo inside your media library:
When you upload photos, you’ll need to manually copy and paste the title into the alt text box (minus any ordering numbers if you use those to organize photos like we do) or you can also find plugins that will automatically copy the title into your alt text for you.
Conclusion
When it comes to images for your business website, you’ll find you have to put in just as much care and consideration in choosing and uploading them to your website as you do with writing content. But if you make originality priority, keep track of photo sizes, use descriptive titles, and don’t forget to add your alt text, your images will help you to promote your business well.
We hope these tips come in handy, and if you need help building your next website, don’t hesitate to give us a call!
Looking for more website tips? Read more articles in our Website Tips Series below: