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Hi Reader,

One of my favorite things about my job as a business owner is learning things. I used to spend a ton of my time learning, but I started noticing that I was reading articles and taking courses on things... that I already knew how to do.

I don't think there's a point at which you should stop learning as a business owner. There is a point where it's much more important to take action. And the way you learn and from who changes as your business grows.

We have a post on our blog about this right now. My thought is that reading, listening to podcasts, and watching videos are a great way to get started when you're new, or when you're tackling a new issue. Beyond that, joining a mastermind group of peers can be great for day to day learning and hearing how others are solving similar problems. You may also want to take a class or get a mentor at some point. We have had consultants come in and very efficiently tackle problems that we didn't know enough about.

Finally, sometimes you don't actually NEED to learn the next step for your business. Sometimes you just need to hire someone else to do it (like when people hire my team at Aeolidia to improve their websites).

Five Ways to Get Knowledgeable Advice to Grow Your Business

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Q&A

Here's a reader question about descriptive file names for images, from Susan, as answered by Kai, SEO Consultant on our team:

Q: Susan asks, "One of your recommendations is to use descriptive file names for images. I used to do this religiously, but then I noticed that Shopify changes the name when you upload an image to a seemingly random string of characters, so now I’m wondering if it’s worth it. Does it really benefit SEO?

I upload a lot of images and not having to carefully name each one would save time and effort if it’s not worth it from an SEO perspective."

A: Let me cut to the chase: you don’t need to worry about renaming your images to a descriptive file name for SEO purposes, with a few exceptions.

SEO practices have significantly evolved over the past decade as Google has iterated to cut out some of the ‘spammy practices’ people were using. And while using descriptive file names for images was once a semi-effective optimization for keywords, it’s no longer a significant factor in SEO. (Why so? Spammers abused it, and Google evolved to focus on other signals.) So, if you’re spending a lot of time carefully renaming each file for SEO benefits, you can redirect your efforts elsewhere.

However, there are benefits to having descriptive file names. While these aren’t SEO benefits, they are worth considering.

Data Management: A clear, descriptive file name makes organizing and finding images easier. It helps avoid confusion like, “Was the final product photo red_beanie_photo_final_temp_final_3_final.png or FINAL_beanie_red_final_test_3_final.jpg?”

This organization is important for larger ecommerce stores selling a wide range of products.
Accessibility: File names can be helpful for screen reader users, though alt-text is a more significant and SEO-relevant optimization. Ensuring your images have relevant, descriptive alt-text is impactful for accessibility and helps screen readers interpret images.

Since we’re talking about images, here is a related tip for you:

Image Size: Consider the size and compression of your images. Optimizing for faster load times improves user experience and benefits SEO. Smaller image files are more accessible for people on slower connections, which is a factor and signal that Google looks at. (I enjoy tools like <TinyPNG.com> for smart image compression.)

Finally, while focusing on image file names might not be essential for SEO, investing time in your store’s SEO is vital. I encourage you to redirect your time optimizing your image file names to other areas, like writing descriptions for your store’s collections. This content can have much more of a direct impact on your SEO and customer engagement.

In short, don’t stress about image file names. That isn’t a significant opportunity for your SEO, and you could spend that time on other, higher-impact SEO opportunities.

Question: Answered

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