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Best Practices for Image Load Optimization
WSD SEO Standard Operating Procedure
Best Practices for Image Load Optimization
A very important part of Google's algorithm is page load. The heavier and longer to load a page is, the lower it will rank in Google Search Results.
The faster and shorter a page is to load the better it will get ranked. Google has established a 1MB per page guideline for maximum page load speed.
Follows are a few tools and considerations to help you keep images, and ultimately, pages to a reasonable size.
To save an image for your website:
1. Open the image in Photoshop.
2. Check to make sure image is RGB not CMYK. (RGB is for images displayed on screen, CMYK is for images that will be printed on a printing press.)
3. Resize and/or crop the image so that the resolution is 72ppi, and the dimensions are twice the dimensions at which it will display. For example, if the image displays at 400px wide, make sure you resize it to 800px wide.
4. Go to File > Save for Web. If you choose to save the image as a JPG, choose an image quality somewhere between 50 and 65. PNG and GIF files do not allow you to choose a quality setting. Photos will work best as JPGs.
5. Guidelines for naming your images & optimizing image names for search
Give your images detailed, informative filenames. The filename should be a good description of the subject matter of the image. For example, my-new-black-kitten.jpg is a lot more informative than IMG00023.JPG.
More: http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/optimizing-images-for-seo--webdesign-9949
- Always include ALT text
- Always include Title text (maybe only for Sect508 issues)
- Make sure the EXIF data is ideal http://www.labnol.org/tech/google-images-reading-exif-data/14211/
Questions? Ask your WSD account manger! J