The Importance Of Images On A Website
Images are important because…
There are numerous studies that show people tend to remember around 80 percent of what they see and as little as 20 percent of what they read. There is even research that shows 65 percent of people learn visually. Researches at MIT were also able to find that the human brain is capable of processing images in as little as 13 milliseconds. As you can see, there is a lot of research showcasing the importance of images is one of the most powerful methods of communication. One of the most important things they can do in today’s increasingly global economy is their ability to remove language barriers as they are typically understood by the majority of people throughout the globe.
Over the Internet, images can be used for various things. They are regularly used to provide enhancements to websites, to purposefully illustrate stories, as social media posts, like advertisements, and even to present different products and services.
The Main Reasons To Use Images On Your Website
1. Offer A Better User Experience
For one, images matter because they can be used to get someone’s attention. They will be able to convey messages that would otherwise take you a long time to convey through written words. They will be able to showcase things much better than you could describe with words and because people tend to gravitate towards images, it is going to be much better at capturing their attention with them.
2. Relevancy
Another reason it’s important to use images has to do with the ability to deliver contextual information that is going to offer up information to the user. For instance, if someone is looking to choose a hotel, they are going to be seeking out information about the aesthetics and appeal of the hotel. Nothing is going to be able to deliver it quicker than posting a gallery full of optimized images showcasing the hotel and the various rooms.
3. Increasing Dwell Time
The total time a visitor spends on a website is a user engagement signal that is used as a ranking factor for Google and other search engines.
Images can be a very important part of the overall content strategy for a website. The most captivating images can be set above the fold which will serve as everything from attention grabbers to informative tools. They should be highly relevant to the text that exists on the page and they should be completely original. You want to avoid using stock images as they are not nearly as captivating or effective.
4. Improve On-Site SEO
As mentioned, the images will help boost the rankings of a website. As long as the image is relevant and it features high-quality and relevant tags, it is going to help get the website ranking higher.
SEO For Images
While Google already has developed image-recognition algorithms and while they already hold different patents for the various systems for recognizing images, you still want to engage in the optimization of your images in order to get your website ranking higher. You want to choose the right image that is highly relevant to the text on your website and you want to ensure that the image is unique as stock images won’t increase your rankings.
Using Smart File Names
It’s not enough to upload a custom image with a randomly generated file name. You want to ensure that you are naming the image properly so Google is capable of figuring out what it is about. It should be relevant to the text on your site and the image itself. For example, instead of having a file named “IMG_26254185_15478”, you want to name it “hotel-lobby.jpg.” or with a keyword specific to your business.