Visual Basic Programmer

Website OPTIMISATION

Website Images

Fancy graphics can be attractive. They have an impact, but the benefits of using text far outweigh those for using images.

The speed of a Website is important to users. There is less than 20 seconds to capture their attention and convince them to look further. If the Web page takes a long time to load, they will be lost. Slow Web Pages can also cause a Website to be downgraded by the Search Engines.

So use Images sparingly – they should only be used if they relate and support the Web Page content.

There are several factors to consider when optimising Images on your site:

File Names

Giving pictures an appropriate file name will help search engines determine content, especially for Image specific searches like Google's Image Search. For example, the Image above is called "Image-Handling.jpg", rather than naming it "XP1234.jpg."

Image Size and Quality

When both Image size and quality are important, this causes problems. Lower quality Images decrease load time, but detract from the visual effect required. High quality Images look great, but cause pages to load slowly.

It is best to place a small thumbnail Image next to the description, and then link it to a high quality Image. As an example, see how Google handles the searching of Images. Twenty thumbnail Images are shown on a page. Using ADSL the download time is an acceptable 12 seconds.

Compression

It is essential that Images be optimally compressed. Properly optimised Images will decrease page load times and bring new visitors from Image searches. Ideally, the total size of all Images on a page should not exceed 10 KBytes.

Experiment with all the different Image Formats, using the highest compression that gives acceptable quality. Start with the .png Format Type – it has lossless compression. Increase the compression ratio of the .jpg or .gif Format Type whilst maintaining reasonable quality. Avoid using the .bmp format.

This is an analysis of different Format Types, using the Image on this page:

The Format chosen was .jpg, with a 98% reduction in size! Note that the optimal Format Type will vary depending upon the composition of the Image.

Alt Text

All Images should include ALT text (shown when the user places the mouse over an Image) that describes the Image. The Alt tag helps search engines understand Image content and context. This in turn allows more targeted traffic via search and Image searches.

Put relevant Keywords into the ALT tag of Images. The contents of the ALT tag have some bearing on ranking. Use the ALT text to make the Image user-friendly – and describe what the Image is depicting.

Surrounding Text

It is important that the surrounding text and Image captions are consistent with the content of the picture. According to the Google Images FAQ:

"Google analyses the text on the page adjacent to the Image, the Image caption and dozens of other factors to determine the Image content. Google also uses sophisticated algorithms to remove duplicates and ensure that the highest quality Images are presented first in your results."

Avoid Putting Text in Images

Using Text rather than Images has multiple advantages:

• Text is easier to read
• Text downloads faster
• Text is easier to update
• Text can be found by search engines
• Text can easily become distorted

Google's advice: "Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images."

So, having a Graphic artist design a beautiful Logo may look attractive, but the image cannot be indexed by search engines. The Logo Image should be combined with text that is readable by search engine spiders.

The graphic should be created with everything but the text. The Text can be placed over the logo using CSS, to make it look like part of the graphic. When a search engine spider visits the page, the text will be incorporated into the indexed results.