AEC marketers spend significant time creating website content. Unfortunately, most of that time is spent finding and repairing broken image links. Broken image links not only foster a poor user experience; they make your firm look inexperienced. Fortunately, this guide has everything you need to fix the broken image links that plague your website.

Tips to Find and Restore Broken Image Links

If you have several broken links or a broken image picture, you can easily lose your customers. In most instances, broken links occur when you have deleted or moved a page your link is pointing to. Here is we show you what a broken image link looks like and how to fix it.

What are Broken Image Links

A broken image is nothing more than a link that transfers users to a 404 error or an underloaded image icon. Underloaded images and 404 pages are not only unattractive. They provoke rejection and degrade conversion.

Are Broken Links Bad for SEO

Broken images links are not only bad for the user experience but also harmful to your site’s SEO. The better your site’s SEO, the easier it is for users to find it in the search results. The more broken links, graphics and images you have on your website, the more likely search engine robots will consider the resource abandoned and decrease its positions in the results. 

Unfortunately, SEMRush estimates that 35 percent of sites have broken internal links. 10 percent of those links are images. Fortunately, broken links and images are easy to find and even easier to fix. 

Why are my Image Links Not Working

Broken image links typically occur when the link address is no longer valid, i.e., when someone has deleted, moved or renamed the page on which your link relied. This generally happens in one of three ways:

• the image file is no longer located at the location specified in your <IMG SRC=> tag;
• the image no longer has the filename as specified in your <IMG SRC=> tag, or
• the image file is corrupt or damaged.

Though you may be tempted to call up your web hosting service and give them a piece of your mind, remember that broken links and images can’t be caused by problems with the server. They are only caused by incorrect HTML code or an error when uploading the image files to the servers.

How to Find Broken Image Links on Your Website

There are a litany of third-party services like ScreamingFrog that will crawl your website for broken links and images, and provide you with a detailed report. SEMRush also offers a nifty Site Audit tool and a link checker plugin that can find and fix all of your broken links.

If you’re pressed on budget, then Google Search Console is your best option. Google Search Console is a web service that enables webmasters to check the indexing status of their website, measure the site’s Search traffic and fix issues that affect the site’s visibility, like broken links and images. 

For more help with crawl errors and broken links, we suggest that you read 5 Steps to Get Your Website Crawled Faster by SEMRush.

How to Restore Broken Image Links

Now that you’ve identified the broken image links on your website, it’s time to fix them using a simple but effective process. 

Step One: Make Sure the Image Actually Exists

Before you dig into any code or pull your hair out in the backend of WordPress, check whether or not the image actually exists where it should be. If the image is missing, then simply upload the image and label it with the appropriate alt tags and title tags. Voila. You fixed the broken image. 

Step Two: Check the Filename and Extension

If the image exists where it should but the problem persists, then the next step is to ensure the image name matches the image name. Something as small as a dash used in place of an underscore can break an image. So, be on the lookout for errors in the code, such as “featured-skyscrapper.jpg” versus “featured_skyscrapper.jpg”. 

How to Store, Share and Manage Images and Other Digital Assets

Broken image links are a frustrating nuisance. Fortunately, now you know how to find and restore the broken images on your website in just a few easy steps. Unfortunately, your troubles with images and other digital assets are likely just beginning. 

Get Started With OpenAsset Today

Any AEC marketer will tell you that the more images you deal with, the harder it is to find, use and manage them. Follow the link to learn how Digital Asset Management makes it easier to build beautiful proposals and win more business, or schedule a demo of OpenAsset with one of our solution experts. Don’t forget to follow OpenAsset on social media for exclusive offers and valuable insight for AEC and Real Estate firms.