Naming of an image (photo) before uploading to the website
All search engines such as Google or Bing cannot “read” the contents of a photo - you have to tell it what the photo is about i.e. describe the purpose or contents so that the search engine knows how to
index it for searching.
Follow these steps for proper naming of your images:
- Name the photo file to describe its contents i.e. do not just upload a file with a weird file name from your camera - the name should be a “human” understandable description of the file. Maximum of 25
characters long is more than enough. - After uploading your image you should ALWAYS put in an ALT text for every image that is to be placed inside a post. This ALT text could be the same as the file name or be much more descriptive of the photo contents. Maximum of 255 characters.
- After uploading your image you should give it a TITLE text. We recommend that you just repeat the file name or even the ALT text. Some Browsers display the TiTLE text instead of the ALT text when you mouse over an image.
- Caption - optional description to be shown underneath each photo when placed in a post. Highly recommended for a photo gallery.
Size of image (photo or graphic) to use inside a blog post
- Recommended sizes (width):
MINIMUM size: 1200px (pixels) wide and
MAXIMUM SIZE: 1920px (pixels) wide.
We recommend: 1920px wide x 1080px high whenever possible. - The larger the photo(s), the slower your post will display in a browser - very frustrating for a person to have to wait too long to read the post and visitors using limited mobile data bundles will not be happy about large images eating up their internet data quota.
- Please always try to scale i.e. resize all photos down to approximately 1200px before you upload them. Always use a 16:9 ratio for all images.
WARNING: If you upload huge images, they will be cropped/resized by the system during the upload
process. This can take up to a few minutes for a very large image so you must please wait for the compression to complete. If there is an error it will be displayed on your screen - otherwise, be patient for the image to finish uploading.
The positioning of a photo inside a post
The latest and best method of using a photo inside a post is to set it’s width to “full width”. We strongly recommend against placing a batch of little small images aligned to the left or right of paragraphs of text - this almost always causes layout display problems.
A large centred image has the most impact and enhances the reading and visual flow of the post. We recommend that you use this method throughout your posts.
A quick Gallery of images
Why use a Photo Gallery within your Post?
In many instances, you may need to show several photos in a single post. That is when you should
create a gallery, e.g. a happening or event’s photos,
A gallery also allows the reader to click on a photo and see it at a larger size and then to navigate from one photo to the next via a “lightbox slideshow”. You can have as many gallery “groups” in a post as you need.
Download this tutorial in PDF format for future reference.
How to handle images and create a photo gallery