Reducing image sizes can cut the load time of your website and help all the information and images appear more quickly.
How Do Images Affect Your Site?
Images are one of the website design aspects that add to your load times. Each byte of data on your website has to be loaded the first time a visitor lands on your page. The more data you have, the longer the site takes to load. Larger images aren’t always preferred in web design. Sometimes image size really matters. When you want people to be able to see every detail of an image with crisp clarity, a large image size might be a perfect choice. Most images on a site aren’t providing useful information, though. They’re there to make the area look more professional, as a place to embed a link or to break up a lot of text. These images don’t require such a large size to do their job. Consider that people connect to your site using different devices, programs, and internet speeds. A person on a mobile device with a shaky network connection could need long moments to load your site, which means the time you have to impress them dwindles. They may even decide to abandon your site and look for the information in a place that loads faster.
How to Reduce Image Sizes
You can manually reduce image sizes to minimize the load time a visitor to your website experiences. However, you can also crop images or use specific plugins to speed up your website by optimizing your images.
Changing the Size
You can reduce the size of an image in a program like Paint, which is built into Windows by default. If you do a lot of web design or website development, though, you might be more interested in using something like Photoshop, which gives you a few more options. Always back up the photo you’re editing if you want access to the original size. Alternatively, you could save the edited image as its own file with a new name.
Cropping an Image
If you don’t need the entire image, you can also crop out the parts of it that aren’t necessary. The easiest way to crop an image for your site is to select the features you want to use and save them as a new file. You’ll be able to see the new image as soon as you hit crop. It removes everything that you haven’t already selected. Sometimes the change can be more surprising than you think. I cut out a person standing on a beach to zoom in, so their knees and up were focused instead of going down to their feet. It took the image from 421 MB to 246 MB without a significant loss.
Using Plugins to Optimize Your Pictures
If you’re interested in web design and optimizing your website, consider using plugins to help you manage your load times. Some help with images and specifically cut down the load time they add to your site. The plugins you can use vary depending on how your site is created and hosted. Check with your host to see what they have available. If you’re building your site in WordPress, you’ll be able to easily find plugins that help you improve load times via image management. Look for plugins that can:
Support a variety of image types. You may want to mix and match file options on your site, and having to load multiple plugins to deal with them is extra work for no reason.Be fully automated. You want something that you don’t have to reaccess regularly once you’ve set it up to work on your images. Support any page builders that you use. Some people don’t like to design their website from the ground up and use tools to help. A plugin that affects your images must work with how you build your website.Offer image compression. If you prefer not to compress your own images, plugins that do it for you are the next best option.
Other Ways to Optimize Images for Your Website
You can do a few other things to optimize your website for people who might not have the fastest connections. Consider making a few of these changes to see whether it improves your load speeds. Remember that modern sites and browsers can use multiple image sizes depending on the device a person is accessing the site on and what resolution the device supports.
Consider Your File Types
Your image file type can impact the size of the image and the time it takes to load. Most people choose between PNG and JPEG. One isn’t necessarily better than the other because it depends on what you’re displaying. For most web images, JPEG is a good choice. There are ways to balance the image level with the quality when you save it. You can lower the image quality on smaller things like buttons and images. It’s also good if you have bright or large photos because they won’t take up as much space as a PNG image. Choosing a PNG image makes sense if you need to show every detail. For example, if you’re selling an item or a piece of art, consider using a PNG image so a buyer can examine it up close. However, JPEG also produces lovely images. Test out saving the file with a few different sizes and formats to see which looks best at the size you need.
Check Out Compression
You’re missing out on a valuable tool if you haven’t compressed your images to reduce their sizes before. Image compression simply changes the file to make it take up less space. You end up with an image that isn’t as detailed but one that is much smaller. Sometimes you need those crystal clear details, and compression isn’t an option. However, it’s worth checking out before you reject it. Most compressed images don’t look noticeably worse than their larger counterparts, especially on-screen. While you lose some fine details, you don’t have to only use the most extreme compression available to you. If you plan to reduce many of your images, check out a program that can do it in bulk. That way, you don’t have to adjust each individual image.
Does Image Size Affect Website Speed?
Yes, your image size significantly affects your website’s speed. Reducing the size of your images can help make your site load much faster.
What Is the Difference Between High Resolution and Web Size?
Something that is web-sized is made for display on a website. It’s smaller than a high-resolution picture. If you were going to print something out, you’d want a higher resolution to see the images more clearly.
What Is a Good Website Load Time?
You generally want your site’s main page to load to a new user in less than two seconds. The more time it takes from there, the more likely the person is to navigate away.
Will Image Optimization Make a Big Difference on My Website?
You only have a few seconds to hook a viewer with your content. That’s one reason why it’s so important to make sure your website runs seamlessly. A page with several large pictures might load instantly for someone on a fiber connection visiting via their PC. However, people use mobile devices like tablets and phones to do most of their internet browsing now, and it’s essential to ensure your site is also optimized for these devices and connections. It’s one way to make sure you can keep a viewer on your page – which is an important measure of how successful your site is.
