We’ll never tire of saying that images hold the first power in an online store. Product photos are the first contact with the online store, and both the sale of a specific product and your brand image depend on them. Just as we eat with our eyes first, the same happens in online stores: if users arrive and don’t like or understand what they see, we’ve lost a key sales opportunity.
Today, online stores don’t just use images; they show products with stop-motion (a 360º rotation made from multiple photos so you can see every detail) and even videos that complement the photography.
But whether your online store uses simple images or the latest techniques, what still matters is showing up in search engines. Now, with LogiCommerce 8.5, you can see whether your images are ready and optimized, or which ones need adjusting for proper indexing and better SEO rankings.
To get started on the right foot, let’s look at:
What should eCommerce photos be like?
First of all, images must be high quality. There’s no point taking a phone photo of a product without proper lighting or with random colored backgrounds. Images should be color-consistent. If you’ve used a white background for some images, follow a guideline to keep the store’s visual style uniform.
But careful! Don’t confuse quality with file size: we want quality for optimal image resolution, but the photo shouldn’t be any heavier.
To get good images, we need to:
- Have a good camera .- Use semi-professional or professional equipment with ideal lighting to show off the product. Work with neutral, bright light to avoid color distortion and the returns that can result.
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- Clearly show the product’s features .- Take the photo from the right distance so customers can see every detail that might interest them. The more detail we see, the more “real” the product feels and the sooner we can persuade users to buy it.
- Multiple views of the product .- Photograph products from several angles to provide full shots, close-ups and different perspectives.
- Have a consistent style .- Use the same background for all products. Follow a color style (white or gray backgrounds) across every product in the store. This makes photos more attractive and improves the store’s design.
- Include accurate size references .- Take extra care when selling accessories or jewelry, because you need to show the product’s dimensions. If comparisons are needed to show scale, you can use other objects so shoppers understand the product’s size.
Once we have the right photos, we can start working on improvements so that images also help our eCommerce rank better.
Image SEO optimization
Obviously, optimizing is pointless if the images don’t meet basic quality standards. Once they do, we can rank them to drive more traffic to the store through their visibility. Today, eCommerce businesses are investing in Dynamic Remarketing or Google Shopping campaigns, where the product photo stands out above the description or price.
In fact, if you’re running or planning a Dynamic Remarketing or Google Shopping campaign, pay close attention to your product images. Google ranks eCommerce stores higher in Google Shopping when they add extra, high-quality photos to their data feed. So keep an eye on our tips for optimizing your online store’s images to get more traffic.
Name your files with SEO keywords
Avoid file names like DSC_12484ajkd.jpg. Just as a name like that tells us nothing about its contents, search engines are equally in the dark: they can’t tell whether the file hides a party-dress or a Ford-fiesta. That’s why the image file name must be optimized so it tells us what the photo shows.
Optimize the ALT text (image alternative text)
This field is especially useful for ranking images in search engines and helping data feeds better understand the product being submitted. The ALT, or alternative text, is where you add a short description of the image with the keywords, researched in advance, that you want to rank for.
Image size
This point is crucial, since image file size will determine your online store’s loading times. Heavier images make the store much slower, which hurts organic search rankings. That’s why there are several tools to optimize and resize online store images, such as imageoptimizer.net, smush.it or tinypng.com.
To find the optimal resolution, we recommend testing several compression values (between 0 and 100, with 3 tests) to make sure the images don’t become blurry after compressing them to reduce file size.
Check that images are indexed correctly
It’s very important that image URLs don’t contain odd or unreadable parameters. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool lets you analyze loading speeds and check that images are indexed without problems.
Optimizing your online store’s images will be simple thanks to this new app, which shows you which images to improve to boost your store’s organic rankings.
Remember that photos are your eShop’s shop window, and they deserve great care if we want to sell more. And if users like our photos, Google surely will too.
