Without images, most websites would look like endless blocks of text. To capture the attention of the visitor, high-quality images are essential. They will create spaces in your content and make it more readable; Not to mention the extra traffic from image searches. But to reap all of these benefits, you should look to properly optimize your images for WordPress first.
Most owners end up uploading and using images that are not optimized for the web, which can cause a lot more harm than good.
In this guide, you’ll learn why optimizing your images is a must, as well as five ways to optimize images for WordPress.
Why you need to optimize your images for WordPress
Not optimizing images can lead to incredibly slow loading speeds and bandwidth issues. Images can take up a considerable amount of space, and most of it is unnecessary.
Here are some of the main reasons to optimize images:
Your site will load faster
A slow loading site creates a lackluster user experience. This leads to higher bounce rates and less time spent on each visit to your site overall. You can’t expect your users to hang around and wait for your images to load.
Your site will take up less space on the server
Generally, you will not reach the storage limits of your current web hosting.
But having a site that takes up less server space will make it more agile.
You can take that extra weight off your website and have a lighter, higher performing site. Plus, you can lower your server costs by paying based on storage.
It will improve your ranking in search engines
Google and other search engines hate slow loading websites.
Optimizing your images will improve your performance as well as your rankings.
With optimized images, Google will crawl and rank your images much faster too, which can be good for more traffic.
Optimizing your images doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming, and can be part of your regular publishing workflow. Not optimizing your images can be detrimental to the success of your site.
Next, you’ll learn how you can optimize your images for WordPress in a way that preserves quality and doesn’t sacrifice performance.
5 Methods to Optimize Images for WordPress
Your goal with image optimization for WordPress is to reduce file size without sacrificing image quality. There is no perfect way to optimize, but rather a balance that you will have to find.
There are many ways to approach image optimization. You can even combine a couple of methods to ensure your image file size is as small as possible.
Read on to learn five different methods you can use to easily optimize your images for the web.
1. Choose the correct file format
Before you start optimizing, make sure you’ve chosen the correct file format. The file format you choose will affect its overall size and the ability to optimize the image.
The two most common types of images are jpeg Y PNG.
JPEG files are commonly used for photography and general imaging as they:
- Have a smaller total file size
- Provide solid image quality
- They can be resized or compressed without major loss of quality
PNG files are used for vectors, logos, screenshots, and smaller images. You’ll want to use them less often as they have a larger file size.
Aside from PNG and JPEG, you’ll find dozens of other image types. However, they are not recommended when creating images for the web.
But, there is an exception. You’ve probably noticed the explosion of GIFs in recent years. These slightly animated videos can be used to enhance your existing content. If you plan to embed a small video, make sure it’s in GIF format, not MP4.
2. Compress your images
When compressing an image for WordPress, you’ll need to find a balance between compression quality and image size.
With minimal compression, you will get a large file size, but a higher quality image. With a high level of compression, the image size will be very small, but the image quality will suffer.
Your goal should be to find an ideal balance between file size and the level of compression you use.
If you have a website that relies on high-quality images, like a photography site, it will take you longer to find the balance between the two. However, you will be able to use those optimization settings for all images going forward.
Below, we look at desktop tools, online tools, and even some WordPress image optimization plugins that you can use to compress your images without sacrificing quality.
Do-it-yourself (DIY) image optimization tools
Desktop tools give you more control over your optimization settings. If you’re used to working in a photo editor like Photoshop, then you might prefer this approach.
Some of the most popular desktop tools include:
- : Photoshop has its own built-in image compression tool that optimizes images for the web.
- : A free Photoshop alternative that has a steep learning curve but also has built-in optimization.
- : This is a cheaper alternative to Photoshop that has built-in image compression features.
- : A photo editor for Windows users that is a solid alternative to Photoshop and includes image compression.
The above tools have a bit of a learning curve, but they allow you to find the image optimization settings that best suit your needs.
Automatic image optimization tools
If you prefer a simpler approach, you can use an online tool that automatically optimizes your photos.
These tools are great if you don’t want to spend time learning the ins and outs of photo editing software.
Some of the more common online tools include and .
With these, all you have to do is upload your photos and the tool will launch and download your optimized photos.
If you prefer to run software on your computer you will have a few more options, such as , and .
WordPress compression plugins
Like most things in WordPress, there is a plugin for any problem you encounter.
The following plugins will optimize your images while you upload them, and even optimize images already in your media library:
- : This plugin offers multiple levels of image compression for WordPress, image resizing, image restoration, and much more.
- : This free plugin allows you to compress up to 100 images per month and handles multiple different image formats. Also, it has a built-in restore feature and batch optimization.
- : This plugin will optimize images as you upload them to your site, and will also optimize your existing media library. It will reduce the size of your images without affecting the quality.
- : This lightweight plugin optimizes your images with lossless compression, so there is no loss in overall quality, just a reduction in file size.
3. Resize images for optimal viewing
Before you start optimizing your images, it can be helpful to size them properly. There is no point in uploading a huge image to your site, especially when it will be resized anyway.
Adjust the dimensions of your image before uploading. That way you’ll have to deal with a smaller image from the start.
For example, let’s say you need a 300 × 300 pixel image, but instead you upload a 3000 × 3000 pixel image and have your WordPress theme shrink the image to display it correctly.
Not only will this increase your bandwidth, but it will cause your photo to load very slowly.
The best approach is to take note of the image dimensions required by your theme and size your images accordingly. Then run your image through an optimization tool and upload it.
4. Make sure images are well cropped
WordPress has a built-in image editor that allows you to crop your images from your desktop.
While this can be helpful, we recommend cropping your images before optimizing and uploading them.
If you find that an image needs to be cropped to better fit your site, remove the image from your site, crop it, and re-upload it.
By making too many edits within the desktop, you can end up saving multiple versions of the same file. This increases the load on your server and the overall size of your site.
5. Improve the SEO of the image
Did you know that you can optimize your images to help your site and images rank in search engines?
Optimizing your images will speed up your site and improve your ranking chances. However, there are some additional steps you can take to improve the SEO of your SEO image.
Follow these steps to improve the SEO of your images:
Optimize the image title
The image title text will appear when a reader hovers over your image. It is not very important for SEO, but this little trick can improve the user experience.
To change the image title text, go to the post editor where you placed the image.
Select the image and click on the pencil icon, which will display the option ‘Edit‘.
On the screen ‘Advanced Options‘, you will have a place where you can enter or change the title of your image.
Add ALT tag
Your image’s alt text will give Google an indicator of what your page is about.
If you have multiple images on your page, then the first image should include your target keyword. Each image that follows should use a variation of that phrase, while remaining relevant to the image.
To change the alt text of your image go to your visual editor and hover over the image you’ve inserted. Once again, click on the pencil icon which will open the ‘Edit‘.
On this screen, look for a box called ‘Alt text‘ and type your target keyword or related keyword in that box.
Give your image file an appropriate name
Your image filename can help you rank in Google image search, which can be a good source of additional traffic.
Instead of having a meaningless file name, change it to something that includes your target keyword or reflects what the image is about.
Before uploading the image to WordPress, spend some time considering what name would be appropriate for that…
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