I am a firm believer in the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
However there are a few things that you can do to your photographs before uploading your photos to your blog that will help enhance your post’s readability, SEO ranking and just overall experience for your readers.
Here are four things you should do before uploading a photo to your blog, whether you’re a food blogger, lifestyle blogger, professional blogger, just-for-fun blogger or anyone in between.
1. Resize your photos
There’s nothing that makes me close a browser window or go to another site faster than a slow loading blog or website. Certain types of photographers are especially guilty of this one (ahem… any wedding or portrait photogs out there?)
What to do: Resize your images in your editing program (ie. Photoshop, Lightroom) to the display size for your blog. So, if your blog layout calls for images that are 600px wide, resize and upload photos that are 600px wide to your blog. Don’t upload a photo that is 2400px wide and then resize in your blog post.
While you’re resizing your photo, make sure to set the resolution to 72dpi, not 300dpi or 240dpi. When photos are being viewed on a computer screen all you need is a resolution of 72 dpi, that’s enough. That’s the highest resolution your computer screen is going to be able to show. Just be sure to save a version that is at least 240dpi on your computer for printing (that’s when you need the higher resolutions).
There’s virtually no visual difference between the two (240dpi on left, 72 dpi on right)
2. Change your photo’s file name
If you upload your photos to your blog with the same filename as the one coming out of your camera (ie. IMG_0022.jpg), that means nothing to Google’s search engine. In other words, from an SEO standpoint, your photo is useless.
What to do: Change the filename, to give the search engine something to work with. So instead of the photo file being IMG_0022.jpg (on the left), I changed it to dog_wanting_caramel_candy.jpg (on the right). If you hover over each photo you will be able to see the title of the image.
Now, Google’s search engine knows what is in the picture, and I just gave my blog a little bit of a SEO boost!
3. Does the photo make sense?
Photo vomit. Sorry for the visual, but this is something that I see on a lot of blogs, especially when the blogger is camera trigger happy. Sometimes, you don’t need 15-20 photos per blog post in order to tell the story that you are trying to tell.
Sometimes you only need 3, sometimes only 1 and sometimes well, okay, you can have 10. Just make sure that each photo is there for a reason, and that it’s not there just because the photo was taken.
Continuing on with the story of the dogs and caramel candy… their self control today was impressive.
4. Host your photo on your own server.
Hosting your photos on your own server, benefit is that it will only add to your SEO ranking.
So, stop hosting on Flickr, etc and just upload to your own server already.
Bonus: Add a border (or a watermark)
It just gives your photo a little something extra, and makes them look finished.
And watermarks? Most professional photographers use them, I generally don’t use them for blog posts, but that’s your call.
I hope these quick photo tips were helpful! If you have some of your own, please share!
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
LOVE THIS POST!
“Certain types of photographers are especially guilty of this one (ahem… any wedding or portrait photogs” <— omg the SLOW LOAD times on some of those sites are just insane
I learned the 72 dpi trick about 6 mos ago
and I relabel all my own pics (but just a one word label like dog…so I can go back easily and find all the pics ive ever taken of 'dog') & host on my own site
looks like I am doing okay
except i dont watermark. I am torn on that…
Same here, I’m not so sure about watermarking either. I add it when it’s a client project or if I’m uploading somewhere other than my own site, but for me… my thought is:
If someone really wanted to use the photo, and if the watermark isn’t placed somewhere obnoxious (across someone’s face), then someone could easily remove the watermark using Photoshop. So, I’m taking my chances and not adding something distracting to my photos
yes and there are ways to track your photos using the DCMA-type sites. and if you do find a really important picture of yours used on someone’s site, you can either sue them for damages or pay for a formal/professional “take down”, file a complaint w/ their host, etc…I actually had to research this over the weekend. I’d rather just take my chances b/c anything I put on my blog isnt THAT important or I’d watermark it or take my chances on a future take down being successful if that bridge was ever crossed.
sorry to ramble!
Ooo… I didn’t know about the DCMA type sites to track photos. That’s good to know! Thanks for sharing
I’m going to have to do a bit of research into this one.
such a helpful post. i still have SO much to learn to make my photos better. thanks for these insights!
Thanks Regan! Though I think your photos are beautiful already
Thanks Melissa. I appreciate it… Food photography is definitely not something you learn while becoming an RD
Such a helpful post (I’m really a newbie with food photography) and love the humor too – I’m assuming those doggies got a treat for being so good around the caramels
Haha! Thanks Deanna! Yes, they got treats for being good
These are such great tips! I’m guilty of resizing the wrong way on my blog-thanks for setting me straight because it was driving me nuts. Do you know if it matters for the file name if you use an _ or – or no dash at all? Just curious.
Thanks Sara! I’m glad this was helpful
It doensn’t matter for the file name if you use a _ or -, if you don’t use a dash Wordpress will automatically put a dash in for you (I think).
Thank you so much for sharing these simple tips as it’s something I have been wondering about for a while now.
Amy
Thanks for sharing the tips. I have been blogging for two years but this year bought a SLR camera and began taking photos for the site. This posting helped quite a bit, especially the part of naming your file for the SEO. I never do that and now will!
Fantastic! And congrats on your new camera, I know you’ll absolutely love it!
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