Just like the name of this newsletter, anytime we’re thinking through a website, we should always be thinking about how we can turn that design into dollars.
One of those avenues that can quickly tank your opportunities and turn visitors away is how quickly your website loads.
I don’t know about you, but a slow website instantly will cause me to leave (I have no patience 😅).
How fast your website loads is dependent on many factors, but today we’re going to talk about image optimization.
Resizing your images
First and foremost, you should not be uploading images to your website in their raw, original size.
More times than not, whether you took the photo on your phone, got it from a stock image site, or used a professional camera, the image file is going to be far too large for your website.
And the larger the image file is, the longer that image will take to load, slowing down your website tremendously.
So one of the first things I do before uploading any image to a website is run it through Bulk Resize.
With this website, you’re able to drag and drop your images in, and specify how much smaller you want the image, what format, and at what quality.
I’ve uploaded just a single image, up to dozens at a time, and it bulk processes the images for you super quickly.
Afterwards, it will tell you how much it compressed the image file size. Sometimes, it isn’t enough, and you’ll have to redo the process and adjust your settings accordingly.
You will always want your image sizes to end up being in the KB range — the smaller the better, without, of course, totally botching the quality where you can’t even tell what it is or being too small for it’s placement.
Once you’ve got your image resized, you’re good to upload it to your site! But the optimization doesn’t end there.
Optimizing further on your site
Now that you’ve uploaded your downsized image file, you’re going to want an image optimization plugin in WordPress to do some further work for you.
Personally, I use a plugin called EWWW.io (yes, terrible name — I agree).
What this plugin does in particular, and many other image optimization plugins can do, is further compress your images so they are as lightweight as possible (without sacrificing quality).
Plus, it will convert your images from jpeg to webp format, the most lightweight image type, and serve them from a CDN (content delivery network). A CDN, in layman’s terms, essentially helps show your images faster to your visitors.
Once you get an image optimization plugin setup on your site, like EWWW, it will always compress any new images you upload automatically.
In addition, many of these plugins will allow you to lazy load your images as well (more on lazy loading here).
Having a great image optimization plugin setup will really help your website images load super fast, helping improve overall site speed — and make visitors happy!
See you next time,
