Optimising images for your website

In this post, we’ll be looking at the importance of optimising image size for your website.

• Why is it important?
• What are the benefits?
• How can you optimise images on your own site and in WordPress?

Why optimisation is important

Optimising images for the web involves reducing their file size without sacrificing quality. This can be achieved through compression, resizing, and choosing the right file format. Below are some reasons why optimising your images is important:

• Faster loading times: Large images can slow down your website’s loading speed, which can negatively affect user experience. By optimising your images, you can reduce their file size, which in turn will speed up your website’s loading times.
• Better SEO: Optimised images can improve your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO). By including relevant keywords in your image file names and alt tags, you can help search engines understand what your website is about.
• Improved user experience: Users are more likely to engage with your website if it loads quickly and looks visually appealing. Optimised images can enhance the overall user experience by making your website more responsive and aesthetically pleasing.
• Reduced bandwidth usage: Large images can consume a lot of bandwidth, which can be costly if you’re on a limited hosting plan. By optimising your images, you can reduce your bandwidth usage and potentially save money on hosting fees.

The Benefits of Optimising Image Size

Optimising image size is one of the easiest ways to improve your website’s loading times and user experience. When you upload a large image, it will take longer for your browser to download it, which can be frustrating for visitors who are on a slower connection or have limited data plans.

Additionally, if an image is too large then there’s no need for it to be displayed at full resolution; instead of displaying a high-resolution version of an image that takes up space on their device (and potentially slows down their browsing), browsers will automatically scale down images so they’re not wasted resources on users’ devices. This means that even if someone wants to view an image in its original quality later on, they won’t have any trouble doing so because everything has been optimised beforehand!

How to Optimise Image Size

• Resize the image: If you have an image that’s too large, resize it to make it smaller. This will reduce the file size of your image and make it easier to load on your website.
• Compress the image: Once you’ve resized your image, compress it using a program like Photoshop or GIMP (a free alternative). Compression programs use algorithms to remove unnecessary data from an image file while retaining its quality as much as possible; this results in smaller files without sacrificing any visual integrity.
• Use the right file format: When saving an image for use on a website, always save it as JPG or PNG instead of GIF if possible; these formats are best suited for displaying photographs online because they contain less colour information than other formats like BMPs or TIFs which can cause slowdowns when loading large numbers of graphics at once.

Best Practices for Optimising Image Size

• Know the purpose of the image.
• Use the right file format for your images.
• Consider using a CDN to speed up page loading time, especially if your site has many images on it (this is especially important if you’re using WordPress).

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Using the wrong file format
2. Not compressing images
3. Using oversized images

Conclusion

You should now have a good understanding of why image size is important, and how to optimise it for your website. The next step is to make sure that you have the right tools in place to help you create high-quality images that are also small enough to load quickly.