Free Image Editors to Optimize Photos for Your Website

Often you probably won't need an advanced image editing tool to crop or reduce the size of your photos. While Photoshop is the king when it comes to image editing, there are several free programs that you can use to optimize images for the web. Below are a few Free Image Editors to Optimize Photos for Your Website.

MAC:

If you're using a laptop from Apple, one of the free programs that are built into the operating system is Preview. The Preview is the default program used to view images on a Mac. While it doesn't have the same advanced features found in Photoshop is remains a very capable tool to resize and crop images.

Windows:

While MAC operating systems have Preview, Windows has two notable image editors to available. These programs are FastStone and PIXresizer. Yet, unlike the Preview tool that comes included in Mac computers these apps will need to be downloaded on a PC.

Multi-Platforms:

Two programs that are platform independent that also deserve a mention is Canva and ImageOptim. In addition to photo editing, Canva includes tools for logo and graph making. Although not an intensive editing program ImageOptim is great when reducing file sizes of images. ImageOptim is great because it can reduce the size of a file without affecting too much of the quality of the image.

Summary: Free Image Editors to Optimize Photos for Your Website

In conclusion, you don't need to rely on an advanced edtior like Photoshop to optimize images for your website. To recap, you can use the following image tools to prepare photos for your website:

• Preview (MAC)
• FastStone (Windows)
• PIXresizer (Windows)
• Canva (Online)
• ImageOptim (MAC/Windows)

These are just a few programs to get you started. In the future, if you want to upgrade to a more advanced image editor, Adobe Photoshop is a fantastic choice.

QA Your Website Using SEO Spike

I was working on a website a while ago and I found myself doing a lot of manual QA testing for the site. Because of this, it made me think that there must be some way to automate some of these tasks. A way to automate some of these testing tasks is to QA Your Website using SEO Spike.

SEO Spike Features:

Similar to how I wrote about three amazing WordPress plugins for site performance, SEO Spike is a package of SEO tools to improve and optimize your website.

• Meta Tags Analyzer
• Keyword Position Checker
• XML Sitemap Generator
• Backlink Checker
• Alexa Rank Checker
• Link Analyzer
• PageRank Checker
• Server Status Checker
• Page Size Checker
• Website Screenshot Generator
• Google Index Checker
• Website Links Count Checker
• Page Speed Checker
• Broken Links Finder
• Search Engine Spider Simulator
• Keywords Suggestion Tool
• Page Authority Checker

These are just a few of many of the features SEO Spike offers. Of these features, I think the Broken Links Finder and Page Speed Checker are very useful in analyzing your website's health. I could also see the Website Screenshot Generator for sharing a thumbnail of your website after finishing a project.

Summary: QA Your Website using SEO Spike

In conclusion, quality testing your website can guarantee that your visitors have a great user experience. Building a website can become a major endeavor. Having tools to automate any QA issues will make things a lot less stressful in the end.

Resources for Building Visual Content for Your Website

Visual design is important in building a website. Content matters a whole lot not only to your visitors but also to those wonderful SEO algorithms. Below are some resources for building visual content for your website.

Podcast

https://shows.pippa.io/moderrn/resources-for-building-visual-content-for-your-website

StockSnap.io

A great royalty free website with an impressive collection of photography is StockSnap. However, the drawback in relying on photos from StockSnap is that you begin to notice other sites using the same images that you're also using. Make sure to read the license of the photography you decide to use.

Pixeden

There will come a time when you may not want to use photography for your website or blog. The site Pixeden offers graphics resources from icons to illustrations. Just be aware that similar to StockSnap, many popular images are commonly used among on other websites.

Your Current Photo Library

We live in a day of age where everyone has an impressive camera on their smartphones. You've probably have taken a dozen photos that you could implement for your own site.

Summary: Resources for Building Visual Content for Your Website

In conclusion, there are many great stock art sites to help in building a photo library for your website. These sites are great if you're looking to add visual content to your site or blog. Once you have a starting point you can add in your own photography.

Use Dropbox to Send Content and Images to Your Web Designer

During the beginning of a web design project you will need to send content and images to your web designer. To limit any delays in completing a website it's best to send these files at the beginning of the website creation. There are many ways to send content to your web designer such as Email, Google Drive. One useful way I have found is to use Dropbox to send content and images to your Web Designer.

Use Dropbox to Send Content and Images to Your Web Designer

Dropbox is a great tool in providing contents to send images to your Web Developer. A Dropbox Basic account is free and includes 2 GB of space. This should be more than enough for uploading text and photo files for your Web Developer to use.

Organize Content Based On Website Planning

Normally you will have a consultation with your web designer. During this consultation for the planning of your website you will probably decide on the page structure of your website. For instance, page structure for a Copy Writer's website may look something like this:

• About
• Contact
• Home
• Projects

Once you have an idea of the page structure of the website, you can organize and name your photos. Many websites follow a pattern of using a photo of yourself and possibly an optional background photo. I think the best way is to name each photo with the page title in mind. For example:About Page

• About_ProfilePhoto.jpg
• About_BackgroundPhoto.jpg

Contact Page

• Contact_Photo.jpg

Home Page

• Homepage_Photo.jpg
• Homepage_BackgroundPhoto.jpg

Project Page

• ABCCompany_Project_Photo.jpg
• ABCCompany_Project_AdditionalPhoto

Organizing Page Content

Similar to how we organize the photos above, we can use a similar strategy for the web site pages. It's best to keep the photos and page content separate for faster implementation into the website. A great tool to use is Microsoft Word and create separate document pages for each Web Page:About.doc

• Details About Yourself
• Background

Contact.doc

• Contact Details
• Email Details
• Phone Details
• Optional: Address Information for Stores, Services

HomePage.doc

• Homepage Details

Project.doc

• Description of Each Project

Uploading to DropBox

You can use the following steps to upload to DropBox

• Sign in to the Dropbox website.
• Create a Folder Name for Your Project, example: WebsiteContent
• Click the Upload button at the top of the window.
• A window will appear. Click the Choose File button and then select the file on your computer that you'd like to add to your Dropbox.
• Choose as many files as you like, and then click the Start Upload button.

After the upload has been completed, you can then share the Folder Name with your Web Designer.

Summary

In conclusion, this is just a sample of how to use Dropbox to send content to your Web Designer. The naming convention will change depending on the type of website you want. The content organization of an e-commerce website may look drastically different. A service type website may include a Services page instead of a Projects page. I hopefully the above gives you insight on how to use dropbox to send content and images to your Web Designer. Connect with me to get started on building your website. Thank you for visiting!