26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.
J is for JPEG
JPEG is Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, a standard for compressed pictures, widely used on the web. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality. The most common filename extensions for files employing JPEG compression are .jpg and .jpeg.
You should always use images to accompany your social media posts and the content you create. When at all possible, its better to use original images – those you have taken yourself – than stock photo images. If you can’t do this, use one of these recommended photo sites to source your images.
Once you have found the right image, the next step is to optimize it for use on your website or blog. Using a JPEG file extension for larger photos will give you good results with a relatively small file size.
If you need to reduce the size of your image, use a tool like JPEGmini, or jpeg.io. Images can have a big impact on loading times – the faster the site, the easier it is to visit and index a page.
Lastly, be sure to add a caption and alt-text to describe what’s in the image so both search engines and people can make sense of it.
Dive deeper into the topic of optimizing images for search engines with this Yoast post.
