Why do some images take center stage in Google searches and news? Have you ever dug into the mystery? Not yet? Then, this is your page.
Image optimization is the unsung hero of web performance. Think of it like trimming the sails of a boat – with just the right balance. You can glide through SEO, user experience, and website speed like a pro. In a digital world where every millisecond counts, optimizing images is not just an afterthought – it’s a game-changer.
Image optimization is critical for news sites and digital magazines that upload vast numbers of images but don’t have the luxury of fine-tuning each one.
Quintype's Publishing CMS handles the tough stuff behind the scenes, ensuring your site stays sleek and speedy without needing every image to be polished to perfection.
We tackle top image optimization techniques, analyzing how Quintype's newsroom CMS effortlessly manages them for blazing-fast load times and peak performance.
In this guide, we cover the following:
Top image optimization techniques
How Quintype's digital-first CMS assists in optimization
Strategies for news sites and digital magazines
Practical tips to streamline your workflow
Image optimization can boost your search engine rankings and bring in a surge of traffic. What is it?
The process involves tweaking formats, dimensions, and resolutions, adapting images perfectly to the user's device without compromising quality.
Image optimization means shrinking file sizes without losing that eye-catching quality.
Image optimization ensures pages load faster, enhancing user experience and SEO performance.
A well-optimized image can make your website feel like a race car, zooming past your competitors, while a bulky one can weigh you down like carrying an elephant in a backpack.
Take a quick example—try googling "top travel places in the world."
See how U.S. News Travel and Forbes have nailed it. Plunge into their articles, and stunning images perfectly complement each travel destination.
While you go to the image tab, Forbes retakes the spotlight with beautiful image placement and captions that draw you in. It is like they hand you a fast pass to your dream destination. Their image strategy is not just eye candy—it is traffic gold. Notice how beautifully the caption is crafted and how well the image is placed.
There are six key elements to focus on:
1. File Name
Keep it short, crisp, and to the point. There is no need of using long-tail keywords or keyword stuffing here. Name your image succinctly when storing it in your media library or system to save time when uploading it into the article.
2. Alt Text
Alternative text must clearly describe your image, and it's a great place to include your main keyword. Just say what is the image, don't elaborate writing " this image is or this file shows" , avoid stuffing keyword. You are done.
If an image shows a sunset over a beach, the alt text might be “sunset over a sandy beach with palm trees.” This text is not visible on the page unless the image fails to load. If the image fails to load it appears in place of the image.
For instance, this is an image of an article in BBC. The alt text written here " alt= Reuters Close-up shot of a Google office building in Atlanta, Georgia, displaying the Google logo" - How clearly the alt text has been written so that the search engine couldn't find any difficulty in reading the image.
3. Inside Image Texts
Avoid placing your keyword or essential information inside the images. If you are sneaking keywords into your images, it is like whispering secrets into a pillow—search engines can't read the texts inside images for ranking. It may increase the file size which can leads to slow page loading.
4. File URL
Keeping your file URLs neat and tidy is like organizing a bookshelf—you will always know where to find things. It makes file management easy and ensures your images are stored in the right place. With each image having its own unique web address, you can share or embed it anywhere.
5. Attribution
Proper image attribution builds trust with your audience and showcases your brand's integrity, making it clear that you play by the rules. Think of it as tipping your hat to creators while ensuring you remain on the right side of the law.
If you skip it, there is a chance that you could find yourself in legal hot water, dealing with costly copyright claims.
Proper attribution helps search engines better understand your content, improving your SEO. Plus, it sweetens the user experience by adding transparency, much like a well-written caption under a photo—it feels more professional.
For instance
Image Title: "Person reading newspaper"
Author: John
Source: The image source where you have taken from
License: Name or type of the license, such as Creative Commons BY 2.0
You can create an attribution like
“person reading newspaper” by John is licensed under [Name]. Available at: [Name]
This format includes:
Title: The name of the image.
Author: The creator’s name.
Source: A link to where the image can be found.
License: The type of Creative Commons license the image falls under, indicating how it can be used.
6. Caption
Many people get tangled up trying to distinguish between alt text and captions. Think of alt text as the backstage crew—it is not visible to your audience but works hard behind the scenes, describing the image for search engines and visually impaired users.
On the other hand, a caption is like a spotlight, front and center, giving context and relevance to the image for everyone to see. If you have borrowed an image from another site, adding a source in the caption is a great way to give credit.
Now that you are a pro at handling alt text and captions. Let us see how Quintype's news CMS swoops like a superhero to help you manage images. When adding visuals, Quintype's publishing CMS makes it as easy as grabbing a snack from your fridge. You can pick pictures straight from its media library or upload a fresh one from your system.
Need to drop an image in the middle of your article? Just hit the "choose" button, and boom. While at it, Quintype's CMS serves up a sleek interface
You can update alt text
Write captions and credits.
It auto-generates a file link where your image is stored
It provides file size, type and the dimensions.
Quintype's CMS like organizing your digital closet—neat, clean, and ready to go.
The below image is glimpse of Quintype's news CMS media library that has all the images which includes the previously uploaded images on your website. Jump into the media library, pick an image, and see where it appears—whether it is popping up in multiple stories or being reused like a favorite outfit.
Just head to the 'Usage Info' tab, where you will get a rundown of the 20 latest stories featuring the image, with even more waiting to be uncovered.
Do you have a cliff of images to trade with? You can effortlessly import a whole batch by setting up an AWS S3 import into the Quintype's newsroom CMS Media Gallery. This nifty trick saves you the headache of logging into Quintype's publishing CMS and manually uploading each image—perfect for publishers juggling tons of visuals.
Are you just slapping images on your site without a second thought about the file type or size? Or maybe you are converting everything to WebP thinking it’s the magic bullet for faster load times? If that sounds like you, we need to hit the brakes.
JPEGs use lossy compression, which means they reduce file size by discarding some image data, making them ideal for fast loading at the same time trying to maintaining decent quality. This is suited for photographs and complex images with many colors.
Example: You have a blog post showcasing a recent vacation with lots of photos of landscapes, food, and people. JPEG would be perfect here, as it balances image quality with file size, ensuring fast load times without sacrificing too much visual clarity.
PNGs use lossless compression, so no data is lost when compressing the image, and they support transparent backgrounds. This makes them ideal for logos, graphics, or images with sharp edges and transparency.
Example: You are designing a website and need to place your logo on top of different backgrounds. Using PNG ensures the transparent areas remain clear and your logo retains its sharpness. Use PNG in a website header featuring a logo that needs to appear seamlessly over various sections of the page.
WebP is a new man in the game. This format offers superior compression without sacrificing much image quality, combining the best of JPEG and PNG. WebP files can be up to 34% smaller than JPEGs. This is best for high-quality images with smaller file sizes.
Example: Imagine you are a photographer and creating a portfolio but your photos must load quickly. A photography portfolio page, featuring crisp, high-resolution images that load fast.
There are other file types such SVG, GIF, TIFF, BMP and we are not getting into all those because we cover the most important that might come under your daily story creation.
We have got the file types down, but what about size and dimensions?
Google recommends a minimum width of 1200 pixels for content to appear in Google Discover. Reducing the size based on the image type can help with faster page loading.
Quintype's CMS plays it cool with image formats—It support image formats. However, if you are looking for the gold standard, Quintype's CMS recommend sticking with JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, GIF, SVG, HEIF, and AVIF.
Among these, WebP is the star of the show—it’s modern, sleek, and Quintype’s digital-first CMS infrastructure is optimized to deliver these images like a dream. Oh, and GIFs? Just drag-and-drop them in like a pro; no extra steps are needed.
Finding the right balance between compression quality and securing broad browser support is rudimentary for supplying a smooth and visually attractive online experience.
Compression affects image quality and load times.
Lossy compression discards some elements of the photo, while lossless compression maintains image quality.
Consider browser support when choosing an image format.
If a browser doesn't support a certain format of image files, the image may not load properly, leading to broken visuals for users.
Editing permits you to fine-tune the quality and focus of the image, confirming it looks sharp across different devices and platforms while maintaining fast load speeds. These processes confirm that your images are visually appealing without compromising your website’s performance.
Quintype's CMS offers a versatile, on-the-go image editing and resizing toolset that lets you tweak and perfect your visuals. With a wide range of features, you can fine-tune your images to ensure they look amazing and seamlessly fit into your content. Whether sharpening details or adjusting the size for the perfect display, Quintype's digital-first CMS covers you. Let’s take a closer look.
Once you upload your image, click anywhere to set a focus point. It is like giving your image a spotlight, confirming it steals the show no matter where it appears—a mobile screen, a Facebook post, or your homepage. So, instead of cropping your picture off like a bad haircut, it will always stay in frame, perfectly cropped for every platform.
Responsive image scaling means that website images automatically adjust based on the size of the user’s viewport.
It helps ensure a great user experience on every kind of device.
Responsive images also help to improve website speed and user experience.
Crop into Various Size
Choose the same image or resize it into various formats easily.
The 'common' section offers 6 options: custom, square, portrait, landscape, and rectangle.
Customize images for different social media platforms like X, Facebook, and Instagram, tailored for posts, profiles, and titles.
Filters
Apply various filters. Select from a wide range of filters
Adjust and Refinements
Adjust the brightness, contrast and other elements from vivid options along with perfect refinement to catch reader's attention
Focus, Emotions, Frames and Fonts
Adjust the focus of your image in four different ways for perfect visual impact.
Apply a variety of frames to match your image requirements.
Choose from a bundle of overlays to enhance your images.
Add text to your images with customizable font, color, spacing, and alignment.
Upload emojis and shapes to add extra flair to your visuals.
Scribble, mark, or highlight with various brush sizes for those finishing touches.
A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is like a global team of servers working together to speed up your website. It hosts your content across multiple locations worldwide and delivers it to users from the server closest to them.
This cuts down the distance data has to travel. In the end, it fastens the load times. If you want your images to pop up in a flash, using a CDN is your secret weapon so that readers won't be waiting around for images to load.
A CDN improves image loading times by reducing the distance data travels.
It reduces latency by delivering content from a server location nearest to the user.
Selecting a CDN is a must and a crucial decision. If you are at Quintype, you don't need to worry about a backup CDN. Quintype has teamed up with world's fastest CDN providers, to supercharge your digital security and performance.
What does that mean for you? Better reliability, faster delivery, and a seamless online experience. With this powerhouse partnership, Quintype clients can count on uninterrupted, efficient digital operations—so you can focus on what matters most.
Quintype also offers a backup CDN to make sure your website is uninterrupted even if your CDN fails. The backup CDN can take over, maintaining optimal website performance and image load times, ensuring consistent image delivery and enhancing user experience.
You must have heard about sitemap going through technical SEO, but what is an image sitemap?
An image sitemap is a type of XML sitemap designed specifically to assist search engines find and index the images on your website. The regular sitemaps provide information about web pages, an image sitemap focuses solely on your site's visual content.
By including details such as the image URL, captions, and titles, you can help search engine bots easily locate important images. This is especially beneficial when images are loaded via JavaScript or CSS, which bots can sometimes miss during crawling.
If you are using Quintype's newsroom CMS, you are already ahead of the game. Quintype's CMS makes sure your images are part of the story and news site maps. Plus, it includes a daily sitemap and a news sitemap, so your visuals are always getting the attention they deserve.
Use a sitemap generator tool to create an image sitemap.
List all images on your website in the image sitemap.
Submit the image sitemap to Google Search Console.
Common image optimization mistakes can be like putting on a winter coat in the middle of summer—completely unnecessary and weighing everything down. Here are some of the examples.
Uploading oversized images: Not resizing images to fit the layout can lead to slower load times, as a full-resolution image when a smaller one would suffice can make the page sluggish.
Not compressing images: Keeping file sizes unnecessarily large without compression impacts load speed, like uploading a high-quality photo on an e-commerce site without reducing its size.
Forgetting to add alt text: Neglecting alt text means missing out on SEO benefits and making your images less accessible.
Using wrong file formats: Opting for formats like PNG instead of JPEG for large photos can drastically increase file sizes, slowing down your website.
Over-compressing images: Compressing too much can degrade the image quality, affecting the overall visual appeal.
Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify image optimization issues.
Check image file sizes and compression levels.
Use browser developer tools to inspect images.
Let’s be real—when you are racing to upload that breaking news or trending story, the last thing on your mind is fiddling with image optimization. But don't worry, you have Quintype's publishing CMS. With handy pop-ups to remind you, it ensures your images don’t slow down your site or miss out on ranking high.
If you are ready to leave the headache of image optimization behind while still making sure your visuals shine at the top, Quintype is your trusty sidekick. The article detailed just a few examples of how Quintype's CMS makes image handling easy. Want to know more about optimizing images and seamlessly blending them into your content? Schedule your expert assistance today.