Image Optimization Tips for Web/SEO

Apr 7

Written By Paulina

Using best practices for naming conventions and sizes when using images and files on your website can be extremely helpful for SEO. Here are a few of the tips I give to web design/development clients!

IMAGE NAMING CONVENTIONS

Naming tips for SEO:

Keep names relevant and descriptive but brief
Put your name/your brand name at the beginning of file names
Separating words with underscores hyphens will help Google understand file names better (e.g. “brand-name_office-building.jpg” is better than “brandnameofficebuilding.jpg”)

Only use letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens

FILE REQUIREMENTS

Max size limit 20MB on Squarespace

Use images 500 KB or less to help your site load quickly.

72dpi/ppi resolution preferred
RGB color mode preferred
Compressing images is great for keeping file sizes small

NOTE: for images with very bright/vivid colors, compressing may dull the colors. Check your images to see if they still look vivid enough after compression; if not, use the un-compressed versions of the photos whose colors are affected.
Website I use for compression:

JPEGs: https://compressjpeg.com/
PNGs: https://compresspng.com/

FULL-WIDTH BACKGROUND/BANNER IMAGES

Approx 2000-2500px in width

For more information directly from Google, refer to their Google image SEO best practices page.

Note that we are not SEO experts/specialists, but as of April 2024, our full website packages will include a run-through of most of Squarespace’s SEO checklist unless otherwise requested.

If you’d like to work with LARO Studio for website design/development or other design work, let’s connect!

Paulina