With search engines preferring pages that load faster, it has become crucial to optimize images for web to boost performance. Optimizing images also improves SEO ranking, increases conversions, and improves user experience.
In short, it is one of the first and foremost priorities for any website or blog owner.
However, optimizations for the sake of modification will reduce quality, hamper user experience or even worse, make your website look ugly. Thankfully, you can use some techniques to modify image files without reducing quality, maintaining a balance between optimization and experience.
This article will provide some of the best methods you can employ to optimize images for the web.
Benefits of image optimization for web
Image size reduction helps your website load faster without compromising user experience. In short, you can offer high-quality images while maintaining the dimension, image size, and format.
Here are the benefits of website image optimization:
- Picture compression improves load speed – Images often share 65% of space in your website, meaning uncompressed images can make your website slow. In short, optimized images will improve your website speed, making it appealing to search engines and visitors. You can use online optimize image tools or offline software to compress images for web.
- Image optimization enhances user experience – A slow website can turn your audience down, making image optimization crucial for any website. In short, it would be best to optimize your images and other settings on your website to enhance the user experience.
- Reducing image file size improves SEO ranking – Since search engines love websites that load faster, optimized images will boost your SEO ranking and help your website stand out in the crowd.
- Compressing photos reduces server load – Optimizing images reduces memory consumption and server load. For instance, a 200 KB image will consume lesser bandwidth than a 900 KB file, boosting your server speed and performance.
- Website image optimization boosts conversions – Image optimization is crucial for increasing conversions, especially if you have an e-commerce website. For instance, 72% of organic users search for images before purchasing a product, meaning a well-optimized image with a detailed description will bring more traffic to your website.
How to compress image for website optimization
According to industry experts, visitors don’t prefer waiting for websites with slow loading times.
For instance, customer satisfaction can drop by 16% for a 1-second delay, while a 3-second delay forces 40% of readers to abandon the website. In short, reducing image size is an excellent technique to boost audience engagement without compromising your website’s quality.
So how can you compress images without losing quality? Compressing photos requires various steps as you will have to consider the format and compression type to get the best results. You can use tools like Adobe Photoshop or online plugins to compress images.
Here are the things you need to consider to get the best image optimization.
- Optimize images using the correct format
Before optimizing a photo, you will have to choose a file format that will provide the best results for your website. For instance, PNG files offer higher image quality but occupy more space. Likewise, JPEG allows users to adjust the quality and size to provide excellent balance.
You can also use the GIF format on your websites. However, GIFs are best for animations and are suitable for expressing emotions. Since JPEG allows lossless optimization, it is the go-to file format for most website and blog owners.
- Quality and size after compressing photos
Compressing photos doesn’t mean that you have to shrink a 2 MB file to the lowest possible size to boost speeds. Instead, image optimization means employing settings that keep the file size low without losing quality.
For instance, most visitors will never notice an image file that features 80 to 90% of quality from the original image. However, you must ensure that your compressed image does not have blurry details, inaccurate contrast, or artifacts.
The best way to implement image optimization is by using medium compression that keeps your file size low while retaining the original image properties.
- Picture compression type
Besides file format, compression type plays a crucial role in image optimization. For instance, the lossy compression filter eliminates some data to reduce the file size. Although you can reduce the file size significantly, you will have to maintain the quality to get the best results.
On the other hand, lossless compression allows you to compress image data without reducing the quality. However, you will have to uncompress the file before rendering it.
In short, compression type can significantly impact your website’s performance, and it would be best to experiment with each technique to get the best results.
- Software and tools to optimize photo
Image optimization software and tools like Adobe Photoshop can help you optimize images with minimal fuss. These programs have a user-friendly interface and guide you throughout the optimization process. You can use some of these tools for free or upgrade to a premium version to get additional features.
- Resizing after reducing image size
Besides reducing file size, resizing an image is also crucial to boosting your website’s performance. Thankfully, newer WordPress versions create the best size tailored to your website’s theme, helping you get the best experience.
However, you can resize your images manually with WordPress plugins to save disk space.
- Optimize images using a media cleaner
Media cleaning tools like Media Cleaner can help you clean image files to clear disk space. This tool lets you delete unused files and boost your disk space to accommodate newer entries. You can also restore deleted files after running maintenance tests on your website.
How to perform image optimization using plugins
Besides image optimization tools, you can also use plugins to compress images. WordPress plugins like Imagify Image Optimizer, Optimole, and TinyPNG optimize your image files to create the best sizes that will work on your website.
However, ensure that you don’t upload heavy files on your website, as they will fill your disk space and hinder page-loading times. Additionally, you can work on heavy files using manual programs like Adobe Photoshop before uploading your images.
Image optimization for web – Final Thought
As we mentioned earlier, search engines and users love websites that load fast. If your website fails to deliver on user expectations, it can impact your site’s ranking and performance. Image optimization is one of the best ways to boost your website’s loading time and audience engagement.
