Know What Image Optimization Does to Your Ecommerce Business
Have you ever gone to someone’s eBay listing or shopped online and seen posts that offered a robust description of an item but featured no photos of it, or the photo was blurry? What’s your first thought when you see that? The first thought that jumps to mind is a suspicious ‘Why?’ Do they have something to hide? Are they misrepresenting the condition of the product? As soon as that idea appears, it plants itself like a weed and is nearly impossible to remove — the sale is pretty much dead at that point, no matter how much effort the seller put into their product description.
We all know that if you want to sell a product online, you need images — and not just any image, high quality images are very important. Google calls image optimization both ‘an art and a science,’ and it couldn’t be more true. There are so many variables that go into image optimization for websites that it’s hard to know exactly where to start.
Libra Web Solutions service include: Ecommerce Loyalty Programme Development, Customer Retention Strategy Development, Loyalty Programs for Small Businesses, Ecommerce Development Strategy.
Product Images Power Your Business
It would be hard to call product images a ‘secret’ to ecommerce success, as most retailers these days know how important they are. But the psychology of images goes deeper than just avoiding suspicion.
Images give us instant information — humans are visual by nature, and a single snapshot of a product can provide more relevant information about its quality than paragraphs of text. Images provide a natural sense of scale and help customers get familiar with your item before they buy.
Images help us scan — few of us actually read every page word-for-word; most people just skim for the highlights. Images show readers what you have to offer without making them commit — if you have great photos of great products, they’ll stick around to read the details.
Libra Web Solutions service include: Ecommerce Loyalty Programme Development, Customer Retention Strategy Development, Loyalty Programs for Small Businesses, Ecommerce Development Strategy.
Images are shareable — many socially-savvy shoppers talk about their purchases and share their experiences on social media, and if they share your images, your brand gets more exposure. Nobody will share a text-based product description, but sites like Instagram are prime for hosting photos of your merchandise — it’s free advertising.
Images are SEO Friendly — optimizing on-page text is great, but images can boost your page’s SEO value even further. Each image includes file names and alt-text that can be tailored to improve your page’s organic search ranking.
Saving Your Images
Image Size — Large, clear images are great, but they can take up important real estate on a page and slow down page load time, which is a known issue for Google rankings. Let people click a thumbnail to open a larger image, and try to keep your image file size below 70kb.
Image Resolution — Super high res photos can slow down a page, but low res images are unlikely to deliver a sale. Save your images for web and compress them to keep them looking sharp without slowing things down.
Image Type — There are three image file types you’ll typically encounter: JPEG, GIF, and PNG. JPEGs are common and can be compressed while maintaining good quality; GIFs are lower quality but support animation; PNGs support more colors than GIFs but aren’t as popular as JPEGs. For an ecommerce site, it’s generally best practice to use JPEG image files.
Libra Web Solutions service include: Ecommerce Loyalty Programme Development, Customer Retention Strategy Development, Loyalty Programs for Small Businesses, Ecommerce Development Strategy.
Image Name — Your phone or camera is going to name your image files something sequential and nonsensical by default. You don’t want your online photos to have those names on the site — name them what they really are, in plain English, using words people might search for.
Adding Images to Your Site
Image Alt Tags — your image alt tags identify what your image is to search engine crawlers and page readers, and are what shows if your images fail to load. Make these descriptive and relevant, similar to your product name and/or image file name — avoid including prices, CTAs, or superlatives.
Thumbnails — using large, high-res images simply resized to be a thumbnail will kill your page speed. Make sure your thumbnails are saved in small sizes and lower quality if your pages are slow to load, and have them open a larger, high-res image when clicked.
Unique Images — using the same default manufacturer photo for your product images won’t differentiate you from the next site. Include images of different angles, of people using or wearing your products, or of your products in different settings.
Video — don’t stop at just still photos; video is a huge medium and offers lots of optimization potential.
Image Indexing
One often overlooked source of website traffic is image search. People use Google Image Search a lot, and making sure your products show up can be a great way to get new website visitors who started their search by looking through product images. Submitting an Image Sitemap to Google can help them find and index your images and increase the chances your images will show up in Image Search.
The rise of the digital era makes going global easier than ever, and it’s certainly not something you should shy away from. There are so many benefits to going global with your ecommerce. We at Libra Web Solutions are here to help you with all your business needs — contact us at info@librawebsolutions.com. Libra Web Solutions transformed around 80 ecommerce ventures for customers from UK, Australia, India, Hong Kong, Singapore since 2008.
Sharmila specializes in business development, lead generation, and customer service. She has an interest in bringing traditional businesses online, and currently handles business development and customer support at Libra Web Solutions.