Posted 22.11.2022
Whether you operate in the B2B or B2C sector, every eCommerce website must upload images of available products to its website. Without high-quality images, website users are unable to decide whether the product they are contemplating buying from you is fit for purpose.
Yet according to Baymard, 25% of eCommerce websites rely on poor-quality images.
Suppose you want to ensure the best user experience, increase the likelihood of your products being purchased, and offer a better service than your competitors. In that case, you must invest in and implement an image optimisation strategy.
Research from Baymard highlighted that the first thing that 56% of participants did when exploring a product page was look at the images.
Additionally, the same study showed that images that didn’t have a zoom feature resulted in cart abandonments.
Participants specified that products with low image quality reduce their opinion of the products. Alternatively, respondents had a much more confident impression when brands uploaded images with a high resolution.
If images have such an impact on conversions, high-quality images are the online equivalent of holding a product in your hand. Users want to know what a product looks and feels like, quality should be so high that they can see the texture and imagine what it feels like when they zoom in.
Optimising images is the method of ensuring that your images:
And more.
The aim behind image optimisation is that it enhances an eCommerce website, communicates to search bots so that the images can be ranked accordingly and, most importantly, ensures that website visitors of all ability levels have the same experience.
It does. The larger the image file size and the selected file size, when published as product images, (thumbnail, small, medium or large) will impact product page load time.
The time it takes a webpage to load has a drastic impact on conversion rates. According to research, B2B eCommerce websites should aim for all pages to load in four seconds or less.
With every additional second needed to load, the average conversion rate drops – and quite considerably. Here’s what the research shows:
Google, Bing, Ecosia and others are search engines that use search terms input by users and match them to web pages. It then orders these pages in what is known commonly as the SERPs (search engine results pages).
The same thing is true for images. Search engines will take a search term and recommend images that are as relevant to the search as possible. The better you optimise your images, the better chance it has of ranking in the image SERPs.
The more images your website can rank, the better chance people have of finding your eCommerce site.
An image sitemap works just like a normal sitemap (a list of all the pages on your website) but for images.
By uploading your image URLs to your image sitemap, you’re increasing the chances of search engine crawlers finding your images and showing them in the SERPs.
Now we know why image optimisation is essential for any eCommerce website, let’s take a look into how to optimise your current image files and how to ensure any future images are optimised before uploading them to your online store:
Believe it or not, the way you save your images (the file format) has an impact on performance. It’s a basic rule of thumb that you can follow when selecting the best image format for your site:
JPEG images – Compress JPEG images if you are looking to publish larger images (such as a size guide for workplace uniforms) or illustrations.
PNG images – Use PNG images for icons or product images that need to maintain their quality.
SVG images – Choose an SVG media file type for your company logo or any other logos you’ll use on your website.
There are numerous file types, but these are arguably the most common.
You could also consider the user’s browser when deciding what the right file format is for your site. You can discover which browser is used most often by your website visitors via your website’s Google Analytics. You can then use a tool like Can I Use to find out whether the most popular browsers are compatible with the media files you are thinking of utilising.
Image file names can help increase the chances of them ranking in the image search engines. We recommend using descriptive terms relevant to your products whenever you save images.
When you upload these, ensure that the file name of the uploaded image matches to increase the chances of your image ranking in the SERPs.
They do. In addition to helping search engines understand what your existing images are so it can rank them accordingly, the alt text can drastically improve user experience.
If a product image breaks it will be replaced with the alt text until your team can resolve the issue. That means that visitors will still be able to gauge what the image is meant to show in the interim.
The alt text will also be read by screen readers if enabled, helping people with vision loss and blindness understand the web page better.
Both of these can impact user experience which can affect your website’s performance in the search engines.
We would always recommend uploading multiple pictures of your products from a variety of angles and even some showing the product in use. The better visualisation you can give, the better your shoppers can decide whether the product will be fit for purpose.
With that said, it’s important to ensure that you utilise an image compression tool, particularly if you’ll be uploading multiple images of one product so that page load speed is not compromised.
Most eCommerce websites will automatically resize images to fit the screen size. You can help with this by uploading your product images in different sizes so that your content management system can select the best image to load.
If you have the capability, a 360 product view will offer additional value to shoppers. They can look more closely and turn the product around, as though they were holding it in their hands. The better ‘feel’ a shopper can have through the different images, the better the chances of them investing.
It may sound overly picky but it really isn’t. Zooming to resize images is vital for shoppers. With over 2 million people in the UK experiencing sight loss according to RNIB and 250 people starting to experience vision loss every day according to Fight for Sight, the need for zoom functionality in images is vital for a positive and fair user experience.
Shopify predicts that of the 292 million people expected to own a mobile, 187.5 million will shop using a smartphone – so zoom functionality is pivotal.
This means that your product image quality has to be on point. Your product images should also be clickable to expand as well as zoom to get a much closer look should it be needed.
With 93% of eCommerce brands utilising zoom functionality, you can’t afford to miss out on key features like this.
Image compression tools like Tiny PNG will make the image file smaller without compromising on quality.
Reducing image file size is perhaps the easiest way to optimise your product images without having a substantial impact on page load speed.
Schema markup was introduced in 2011 and is a great way to get additional features to the search engine results page. Depending on what type of product schema you implement the SERPs could show:
This means that an image of your product could rank in both the image search results and the main search results.
Start optimising your B2B eCommerce product images today!
The images you upload can have a drastic impact on your eCommerce website both in terms of the revenue made and user experience.
Some of the simplest image optimisation methods include:
More substantial optimisation methods involve:
Evolve Trader supply product catalogue management systems to B2B eCommerce brands. We specialise in wardrobe management, cleaning, healthcare, food and beverage and more.
In addition to assisting with how your product images are displayed, our solution covers product management, order management and returns management too – all of which seamlessly integrate with your existing product inventory management system (PIM).
Find out more about how we can help you ensure your website images are working as hard as you to bring a return on investment.
