” A picture is worth a thousand words,” they told us.
What they did not tell us is the downside.
A picture is not worth a slow website. Unless it’s a picture you need.
Images make bigger impacts on website speed than the average person will realise, and that’s not good news for impatient site visitors.
Can you make your images load faster?
The short answer is yes, you can. Making your images load faster will also make your website load faster.
Smaller images = faster image load time
Faster image load time = better website speed
Does this mean you have to crop your images? Nope.
How to make your website with images load faster
Take note that more images on one web page means more time to load all those images. That is because the web browser needs to process it all before showing it to the visitor.
Can you make your images load faster?
Yes, you can. making your images load faster will also make your website load faster.
Smaller images = faster image loads
faster image loads = better site speed
Does this mean you have to cut your images into half? Nope.
How to make your website with images load fast.
Take: If you need an image to emphasise or illustrate a point, by all means do, but do not over do it for decoration.
How to make your images smaller
Too many pixels in an image can increase the size anywhere from 60kb to 5MB. The recommended practice is to use an image format that will compress the size of your image without sacrificing quality.
Convert your images
Unless you need really need your image to have any transparent part, convert all your PNG images to JPG/JPEG.
PNG images are unnecessarily huge due to so many pixels that add extra MBs to your image and slow down your website.
Reduce/ Remove unnecessary pixels
Use only the necessary amount of pixels
unless you are a professional photographer, or you need to show every minute detail of a photo, cut down the pixels as much as possible. Too many unnecesary pixels translates to more increased image size and more MBs
If you are using your camera, set it to the max widh you’ll ever need. That saves you a lot of trouble.
If you are using stock photos or pictures taken with your phone camera or from any other source, you will have to compress your images. The process is very straightforward.
Compressing image sizes
Go to this website
Upload your image and the website will automatically compress it for you.
When it is done, download the compressed image
Replace the older/bigger images with the new compressed conversions
Notice the change in your website loading speed.
Do this for all uncompressed images.
Converting images
Upload your PNG images and the website will automatically convert it for you.
When it is done, download the converted image. It is also compressed.
Replace the PNG images with the converted versions.
Note: Professional photographers who need to show every pixel of their images may not want to compress them.
