If you’re an online publisher, then Google is king.  Whatever content you’re pushing to the web, you’re going to want Google to index it properly, and serve it up in its search results.  There are lots of guides on basic text and blogpost optimization out there, but what about other types of media like images, video, and audio?  Here’s a simple guide to follow so you can make the most of your multimedia content.

First things first, the general rule of optimization is to ensure a descriptive file name and URL which match what people may be searching for.  This is crucial when it comes to Google deciding if your content is relevant to search terms.  If you want to refine it, you can try using the Google keywords tool to determine search volume. 

Tip 1. How to Optimize SEO for images

Tagging of images is essential for Google’s understanding of what your image actually is.  Pay close attention to your ALT and TITLE tags when you upload an image to the web.

1. ALT attribute is an important part of search engine optimization. It describes your image to search engine and when a user searches for a certain image this is a key determining factor for a match. 
2. TITLE attribute plays a lesser role but is important for visitors as this text will automatically appear in the tooltip when mouse is over the image.

If you’re using WordPress, you can try SEO Friendly Images, which is a free optimization plugin that automatically updates all images on your website with proper ALT and TITLE attributes.  What this plugin does is, it changes these tags based on your image file name and your post URL.  This is a quick one click solution helps optimize all your images at once.

Tip 2. How to Optimize SEO for videos

Sitemaps are Google’s way of understanding and indexing your videos.  Check out this video for a bit more detail on this.

To get more tips on submission of setting up an mRSS feed so you can automatically submit sitemaps of your videos in the correct format, you should visit Google’s Video sitemaps page.

Tip 3: How to Optimize SEO for Audio

1. Text Transcripts: There are several ways to optimize for audio, but the best way is to have actual transcripts of your audio on your web page.   No matter how much you optimize, having plain text is always more Google friendly.  Consider recording in conjunction with speech to text software if it’s more efficient.
2. Descriptive Metadata: Changing your ID3 tags to give really descriptive titles and comments which are embedded within the file.  If you’re changing a few files you can simply right click the file in Windows, then go to properties, then summary.  From there you can edit all the attributes of the file.  If you’re handling this for multiple files you may want to use freeware like ID3 Tagit to help you along.

Do you optimize your content on your website of blog?  Tell us about it in the comments :)

Have you ever come across websites which seem to take…for..e..ver….to load? They can be an annoyance, right? Slow websites with smashing artwork and attractive bling often drive away more people than simple, and clean websites which are optimized for speed and usability.

1. How to Optimize Style: Use CSS as often as you can, and tone down on Javascript

Javascript can add a lot of flair to your website, but more often than not we tend to borrow lines of code from other fellow developers rather than reinvent the wheel. Sounds logical, right? Well, the problem with using other people’s JS is that they usually contain lots of code which we ourselves don’t need. Borrowing CSS, however, doesn’t present that problem as much. So if you want to optimize your website to display smoothly on dial-up lines, try switching styles a little.

Also check out this excellent post on 53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

2. How to Optimize Images: Focus your Format

GIF? PNG? JPG? …JPEG? One drawback of the widespread availability of the Internet is that practically anybody can contribute to its development. This leads to too much choice, which consequently is good, but not so good at the same time, and image optimization is no exception. Knowing what type of format to use for your digital images can save you a lot of hard drive estate. Use GIF for flat-tone colors, JPG for bright snazzy photographs with millions of colors, and alternate between either GIF and JPG for PNG when you feel it’ll give you better quality. Basically, different formats handle different images better, so you can expect a sizable difference in image size when you use the correct type. Also, be sure to use the “Save for Web” options in image editors to optimize images.

Also check out this excellent post on 4 free tools to optimize and compress PNG images without losing quality

3. How to Minimize Latency: Group Files Together

When you write your website, do you write it page by page starting from the bottom up, or with a bird’s eye view? In most cases, the latter method is better, as you’ll get to save time and space when you code. For instance, CSS and JavaScript both allow you the option to save standalone files for reference by your other pages. This allows you to write a single CSS batch file and share it two to a million webpages, instead of having to rewrite the code every time you start a new page. Can you imagine how much space Google saves by having just one CSS reference file?

4. How to Squeeze Extra Speed from Your Website: Extra Tips to counter Time-Lag

There are a certain number of things you can do to reduce the waiting time your website’s visitors have to endure; some which still not many may know of. Make sure to add a slash to the end of your links: “www.myname.com/about/”, as opposed to “www.myname.com/about”. This tells the server that it’s reached the end of the road, so it doesn’t have to waste (milli)seconds detouring when you click on a link. It may not be terribly significant, but well, you take what you can get when you optimize a website.

5. How to optimize your cache for WordPress sites: Use super-cache

SuperCache is a free WordPress plugin that caches your page as a static html file. When your visitors arrive at your site, they will be served the static page instead of the actual page.  This usually makes it much faster for your visitors, and more importantly it creates less strain and burden for your servers.

This article was written by Aaron Pek & James Yeang.  Contact me if you wish to become a writer for this blog.

Those were 5 simple tips to get started.  What other tips do you have for speeding up websites?  Tell us in the comments!