7 best hacks for image optimization for SEO is a complete guide that will set ahead of your competitors when optimizing your images for fast page load. We will be comparing the best image optimization tools based on their features. But before then, let’s start by giving an image optimization definition and the significance of image management or optimizing images on your site.
What is image optimization
Image optimization is an automatic process that not only compresses the file size, but also preserves quality as it includes information such as file name, file type, alt attributes, and thumbnails.
The image optimization on a website will reduce the file size of the images without losing quality. This means that website images load faster and improve user experience.
Images are key to SEO; by using high-quality, fast-loading images, your product and content will be higher ranked in search engines.
If you ever asked yourself how to compress images while maintaining their quality, image optimization tools would offer the best solution. Image optimization tools work by decreasing the file size of your images without losing any quality.
Image optimization tools come with a wide array of features that make uploading and managing images on your site seamless.
Why you should Optimize your website Images
Today, the internet is crawling with graphics, images, and photos. The demand for visual content in marketing and other areas of digital media is growing faster than ever before. Websites need to increase the number of images they provide, but this can slow down a website's load time if the images are not optimizes.
However, image optimization allows us to have an easier time with loading speeds especially when you must have carefully selected the best SEO plugin for WordPress. There is a fine line between quality and full size for the images, but this is solved with the Image Optimization tool.
Image optimization tools assist a website is loading faster. This is achieved by ensuring that the images on the site are of the appropriate size, and not too large.
These 7 best hacks for image optimization for SEO will ensure you have a good user experience on your website, you need to make sure your page loading speed is fast. However, images can hurt the loading speed. Slower websites are more likely to lose potential visitors and customers, which is the main reason you should optimize your website images for SEO ranking especially if you have an ecommerce store and want to run search engine marketing.
Let’s briefly look at the Google guidelines on how to improve your website's ranking. Google advises we should try and increase the-page load speed of our websites so that it is faster than others' speed and you have a better chance of ranking. Optimized images will also boost your search engine optimization.
You need to optimize your images and make sure that your web pages load as quickly as possible. Slow loading pages can lead to visitors switching to another website, so you need to make sure that your web pages are quick.
7 best hacks for image optimization for SEO
Now that you know how important image optimization is, we can take a look at the 7 best hacks for image optimization for SEO tools to use. Below is a list of all the tools that will help your site load faster.
1. EWWW Image optimization plugins
EWWW optimizes your images to improve site performance and ensures the correct formats are displayed no matter the user device.
It's is one of my favorites because it's what I also use on my websites. I highly recommend using the free version to start, depending on what your needs are.
- It can optimize images that have been previously uploaded
- Font size and image sizes in WordPress articles
- Unlimited file size.
- Automatic SEO plugin for WordPress that optimizes your website images as you upload them without impacting quality.
2. ShortPixel
ShortPixel is a lightweight plugin that runs through webpages and optimizes images, impacting your website's ranking in SERPs. It sends the original images to the Image Optimization Cloud where they are compressed and downloaded as optimized results.
The ShortPixel Image Optimizer is a plugin that compresses and optimizes images. To do this, it sends the original image to the cloud, which downloads the optimized version of it while keeping the original.
ShortPixel is a plugin and service which analyzes your website to find the most lightened, properly sized image for each type of browser or device.
From my experience and research so far, I think the best way to reduce bandwidth is to optimize your images. If you don’t have excellent eyesight, take a look at how much smaller it is than the original image- almost by three quarters. And it still looks good, according to me and visitors of my website. You can run the experiment on your site after optimizing your images with the listed tools
3. TinyPNG Image Optimizer
TinyPNG optimizes PNG files and makes them work on all browsers. Even Internet Explorer 6 is supported! Chrome, Firefox and Safari all have builds that support APNG. Edge does not have or support the format.
If you want to save an image as indexed PNG with alpha transparency, you need to use a version of Photoshop that was created after 2015. Photoshop CS5 cannot display these images.
This WordPress plugin will convert your images to small files by compressing them with the TinyPNG plugin tools. You can also install a Photoshop plugin that will allow you to scale, preview, and save compressed PNG and JPEG images.
4. ReSmush.it
This plugin will reduce the size of your images, based on advanced algorithms. It comes with a nifty bulk uploader to save you time
One of the challenges in optimizing images on WordPress is making sure they’re not exceeding the size limit and that is the advantage of using the WordPress optimizing tool
Image optimization is an important and necessary element for a website to be successful. With image management and optimization, you can boost your site's SEO and engagement; and protect from technical issues and it makes pages load faster, thereby helping with SEO
5. Image4.io
Image4.io is the best standalone image optimization program that I would recommend using. Image4 can speed up your images load time, optimize the images and store them in one platform. It has outstanding features for WordPress SEO for images optimization
- Image4.io smart detection ensures that your website images are optimized for load times, screen, and location.
- Increase conversion rates by using top features
- Get full access with an API
- Image CDN (content delivery network) and image manipulation
- Integration with WordPress, Zapier, Slack, Cloudflare
- It can be used for SaaS, B2B, and e-commerce
- Content for images optimization
- Image optimization for websites and mobile apps
- Enhance WordPress' capabilities for optimizing images
6. Imagekit.io
Imagekit.io automatically optimizes and converts images so you can reduce the web hosting burden on your site and content streamline. It has the top features of WP SEO plugins for images optimization
- Image alteration
- Create a storage plan to suit your needs externally
- Deliver content globally with CDN
- Automatic image optimization
- It has a tool that will enable you to use performance monitoring and analytics
- Putting watermarks on images for company branding
- Designing a thumbnail for your site
7. Squoosh SEO Software
Squoosh is an image optimization tool that allows you to compress high-resolution images into a more manageable file size. You can view both the small image and the original full size in Squoosh before choosing which one you want to keep. It is a Google app, so it can work both offline and online with Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers.
Google has come up with a plan to compress large images for websites for faster loading and less lag. Google’s new algorithm analyzes the pixel size of an image and replaces it with compressed pixel data without compromising quality to optimize website performance.
The Squoosh screen is divided in two SEE IMAGE BELOW, with users seeing the before and after results of image compression. This tool helps you see up-close the often-negligible differences — if noticeable at all — between the original and compressed images. However, images that have been compressed for speed and optimized for loads will contribute to faster load times and a better user experience. They might also help boost your search engine ranking.
Below are some of the major advantages of using the Squoosh compression tool to compress images.
- The tool has settings for you to adjust the compression quality.
- This allows you to change codecs and track changes in the browser.
- This image SEO plugin is free and versatile
- The software offers many image formats and compression options
- The Squoosh evaluator allows you to see the changes
- The visual fidelity of images is assessed based on a specific metric.
- If a photo is too large, it can be compressed to reduce the size, and then you can see how it looks while preserving quality through uncompressed images.
- It’s easy to optimize images with the drag and drop function
Final thought
It is unquestionable that a picture is worth a thousand words. Visuals hold more importance than words to us people, and it is becoming more common in e-commerce, media, blog, and travel websites. The average website has 64% of its weight comprised of visuals, so if we are able to reduce these without reducing the quality, then it will lead to faster loading speeds and a better user experience on your websites.
Thank you for reading, let’s have your thought at the comment section on your favorite plugin…. SHALOM
