10 Blog Image Optimization Tips for Bloggers

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Do blog image optimization tips seem ordinary to you? If they do, you should reach out to your blogging pundit via email and ask this: Is blog image optimization important?

I bet if your blogging guru understands SEO and how Google ranking works, he or she would agree that it’s quite important.

I have been blogging since 2010, and I have never felt that I know enough. The new day comes with new things and challenges, especially from the search engine optimization (SEO) standpoint.

I’ve learned that image optimization is essential to your blog growth. It plays a role in your website loading speed, search engine ranking, and content authority building.

When you’re putting a lot of effort into keyword research, content planning, article writing, and social media sharing, then your content must perform outstandingly.

So keeping that pain point in mind, I decided to give you ten tips on blog image optimization so that your blog content could turn things around for you. A quick heads-up, though, some of these tips might be NO-GOs and some of them could be MUST-DOs, so buckle up.

Here are 10 blog optimization tips for bloggers and website owners:

blog image optimization

1. Reducing the image size lowers the quality

We, bloggers, try to add screenshots in our content to make content helpful and authoritative. Therefore, we use screenshot extensions such as Nimbus to create those screenshots.

The problem occurs when we reduce the size of the screenshot using our screenshot tool, mostly. As a result, the image quality goes south. In some cases, the image becomes blurry or pixelated that it doesn’t look appealing anymore.

So whenever you take screenshots, don’t bother reducing the size of the screenshots whilst you’re taking the screenshot. Moreover, you can always reduce the size of the image body when you insert the image into your blog post.

2. Image compressing helps in page loading

How many of you have installed a plugin that compresses images on your blog? If you are using any image compressing plugin, then, way to go.

The majority of you might not be doing anything for image compression. The biggest perk of having such a tool installed on your blog is that it helps speed up your page loading, which plays a huge role in readers’ engagement and search engine ranking. I’m using ShortPixel on most of my sites and it’s been a fantastic image compressor for me.

3. Stop Using the images from Google Images

One of the biggest mistakes newbie bloggers make is that they go to Google Images and take images from there. The 99% of images we find in the Google Images section fall in the copyright category, which means, it may lead to copyright infringement or financial penalty.

Instead, you can check royalty-free stock photo websites like Unsplash and Pixabay for images. However, it’s necessary to read their terms and conditions before using their images.

I have worked with many companies over the past few years which prefer paid stock photography for blog content. Shutterstock is the most popular stock photography website you might want to look at for buying a stock photography subscription.

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4. Don’t Upload image twice for the blog post

When I was a beginner blogger, I used to do this mistake. I used to upload the blog post image twice while publishing the blog post: the first time for the featured section and the second time for using it in the content. It was a terrible mistake, and I kept on doing this until a friend saw me doing this and stopped me. It’s been six years since I stopped making that mistake. Now, I keep telling other starters about this.

The problem was that I was uploading the same image twice. Not only was I creating duplicate content, but I was also stuffing my blog hosting space with an additional burden. You may not run out of web hosting space any time soon, but still, it’s not worth it. Now, most web hosting service providers give web hosting space in GBs even in shared hosting plans, but it wasn’t the case back then. I use Namecheap, which is an affordable and high-quality web hosting service.

5. Refrain from Ignoring the meta tags for blog post images

Meta tags are the SEO elements linked to the images that help search engines identify, index, and rank the images. Not only do meta tags help the images in search engine ranking, but they also play a role in the SEO of the blogs or websites. If you have been ignoring filling up the meta tags for your images, you’re making a big mistake.

To write the meta tags, all you have to do is write the title, description, and alt text once the image has been uploaded in your CMS (like WordPress) and you’re ready to insert it to your blog post.

6. Adding just the featured image to the blog post

I’ve seen some bloggers making this mistake. What they do is that they add the featured image to the blog post using the featured image option, but they don’t insert the same image into the copy. As a result, when they share their blog post on social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, it doesn’t create the snippet on social media. Rather, your blog post title and link appear in an unattractive way.

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Followers don’t often click on such posts because they don’t appeal to them. We instantly click on something on social media that steals our attention. So don’t neglect to add a unique or the same featured image to your blog post. Make sure you aren’t uploading that image twice; read point#4 again.

Also, read the ContentStudio review; it’s a social media management tool.

7. Choose the right image size for featured images

I ran into this problem when I was starting out posting on this very blog. The problem was that the image size for featured images wasn’t right. Therefore, the main image of the blog post was looking squeezed a bit. So I had to reduce the width of the image to fix that problem.

You can, of course, reduce the image size when you add an image to the blog post, but it could be done to some extent. Otherwise, it starts to look a little odd. It’ll be better off if you create images or screenshots that go with your blog post layout perfectly.

8. Design attractive blog post images

One of the blog image optimization tips is to design better blog post images whether they are featured images or blog post screenshots. What attractive blog post images do is that they grab attention, and often, people look at the images and then read the titles of the blog posts.

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Chances are, you have no idea how to design attractive blog post images. So all you need to do is use an online graphic designing tool like Canva and get started with designing attractive blog post images. Make sure that you’re using borders, arrows, and text on the blog post images and screenshots to make your images rather appealing.

9. Use good fonts for the image text

The nice fonts take your featured images to the next level because they contribute to readers’ engagement and help the content get the attention of the audience. The same goes for screenshot text; try to utilize the attractive and stylish fonts available at your disposal.

10. Don’t Forget to credit images from other blogs

Your blog optimization won’t complete if you don’t credit the infographics, screenshots, and images that you have taken from others’ websites. Whenever you take a screenshot from someone else’s website, try adding their link in the nearby text as a courtesy. The reason for crediting other blogs and websites is that their content is helping you strengthen your point-of-view so you can maybe return the favor by doing so.

Bonus Tip: Prefer PNGs over JPGs

I know some of you would flip out right away because we’re told to always use JPGs on the web because of the lightweight and compatibility with websites. I beg to differ when it comes to screenshots, though. I’ve noticed that the size difference (in KBs) is not much, whereas, the quality of PNGs is way better than JPGs.

Final Thoughts

These were a few blog image optimization tips that I learned over the past few years in blogging. The beauty of blogging is that the learning doesn’t stop. We keep on exploring new ideas and testing the different hypotheses in terms of SEO and content marketing. Once we see positive results, we share it with the audience.

As far as blog images are concerned, they are a vital part of the content. I’ve seen blogs that totally ignore adding screenshots or images in the blog post. No matter how good their text-content is, they should also include images in the content. There are two fundamental benefits of adding images to the content. The first is that search engines may see the content as authoritative. The second benefit is that you might be able to keep the reader engaged longer than usual.

What else would you like to add to these tips?