There are plenty of reasons why your website is not speeding up despite its super graphic, quality content, and sleek design. Top of the reasons you are experiencing delay or static results in running your websites is how you handle and upload your images. As a matter of advice, you have to use image compression software to optimize your photos before uploading them to your website, like your WordPress site.
Doing this technique has a tremendous impact on the speed of your website. Interestingly, this problem tends to arise when someone is just starting a new website or a blog. Most people who do not have enough know-how or expertise are prone to uploading photos without optimizing them for the netizen. These large image files turn your website into a laggard one.
To solve this problem, you have to practice the idea of fixing the photos using the best image compression software for the best delivery regardless of the customer’s ISP.
“Image optimization is a process of saving and delivering images in the smallest possible file size without reducing the overall image quality,” reminded the experts at WP Beginner.
“While the process sounds complex, it’s actually quite easy these days. You can use one of the many image optimization plugins and tools to automatically compress images by up to 80 percent without any visible loss in image quality,” they added.
Gilad David Maayan, of IEEE Computer Society, maintained that image optimization is essential since the internet has become more focused on visuals.
“Images and other rich media have become a major factor in page load time,” he said.
Citing a report from HTTPArchive, he said that 2020 images “made up as much as 50 percent of average bytes downloaded by web visitors.”
“Simple optimizations, such as resizing images to the actual size they are displayed on the page, or converting to a more efficient image format, can result in dramatic improvement in page load,” Maayan stressed.
Some fascinating benefits of image optimization
1. Improved customer contact
Since photos are critical and the central attention of your web visitors, you must ensure that photo loading is fast. If you fail to do this, your web users will be less likely to engage with your content or site, paving them to find other websites to check on.
2. Lessen bounce rates
Web-users or visitors are more likely to stay longer on the page if it loads fast.
3. Increased search rankings
Google is particular about the performance and load time of your website. The quick loading gives you a higher advantage on search engines like Google. Thus, optimizing your photos will give you the best position to get plenty of traffic and, yes, a higher page ranking.
Since Google gives preferential SEO (Search Engine Optimization) treatment to quick loading sites, you must prioritize this agenda in launching your website.
4. Cost savings
With super optimization of your images, you will have a bigger chance of saving money for bandwidth. Regularly optimizing your photos will also keep the content delivery expenses and the hosting cost.
Strangeloop showed that a one-second delay in your site’s load time “can cost you 7 percent of sales, 11 percent fewer page views, and 16 percent decrease in customer satisfaction.”
What is the Difference between Lossy and Lossless Image Compression?
You optimize images by lessening the data that a photo has. This is called data compression. As a technique, this reduced the amount of data in your image without losing information. You can do this technique in two ways, lossy or lossless.
1. Lossy compression utilizes the discarding or partial data and inexact approximations to represent content within a photo. Image file types, like JPGs, will check on pixels of color and lessen some of its information but still keep much of the photo quality.
2. Lossless compression lessens an image file’s size without jeopardizing the image’s quality. IN short, no data will be lost using this technique. Image file types like the PNGs, are a perfect example of lossless compression.
“Depending on the type of image, lossless compression could make a file much larger than it needs to be. Remember, the goal in image optimization is to increase load speed for images being uploaded to your website,” said Brian Hegvold, of 30 Degrees North.
Other Image Optimization Strategies
Here are some key strategies to optimize image files, reduce page load time and improve the user experience.
1. Select the Right File Format
Choosing the right file type before you start modifying your photo is the best option to optimize your images.
The most common file types are:
PNG-It gives high-quality photos but also augments size.
JPEG-You can opt to balance the file size and the quality. You can make the adjustment between 1 to 100 percent.
GIF-This file type only supports 256 colors and paves the way for lossless compression. This is rare if you are using static photos. However, the use of GIF is gaining popularity for animations.
2. Resizing
The idea of resizing your image can give a balance between file size and quality. You can resize the photo and still come up with the needed visual effect. You can use a thumbnail for a start. Then the images will be enlarged when the user requests them.
3. Use Content Delivery Network
The use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) helps deliver your photos to the users from proximity to their physical place.
“CDNs are now widely available and easy to implement, and are a great solution for improving image performance,” Maayan said.
The nearer the server is, the quicker the response time.
4. The use of next-generation image formats
The use of JPEG-XR and WebP formats can help come up with large savings in file size with advanced compression without sacrificing the quality of the photos. Optimization guidelines of Google also recommend these next-generation image formats. In this regards, this method is essential for SEO.
5. Caching
Caching is another method to serve content fast by storing the photo files in a browser cache or proxy server.
This needs the setting up storage for photos on several point of presence (PoP) servers, which are distributed throughout the globe.
The photos are served from the nearest server, which helps in fast loading time.