{"id":6042,"date":"2017-08-21T09:26:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T14:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/?p=6042"},"modified":"2019-07-02T11:16:21","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T16:16:21","slug":"how-to-optimize-images-for-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/how-to-optimize-images-for-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Optimize Images on WordPress for Lightning Fast Loading"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Optimize Images and Make Your Website Load Faster<\/h2>\n

Did you know that nearly half of your website visitors<\/a> expect your site to load in 2 seconds or less? Even worse, most will abandon your site if it fails to load within 3 seconds.<\/p>\n

The good news is you can significantly reduce the number of abandoning visitors by speeding up your website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Images often account for most of the downloaded bytes on a web page. If you\u2019re looking to significantly boost your page speed, the first thing you need to do is to optimize images<\/a> on your WordPress site.<\/p>\n

Below are 5 image optimization tips for lightning fast loading.<\/p>\n

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1. Compress images<\/h2>\n

The best way to prevent slow loading images on your WordPress site is to compress your images with your photo editing software before you upload them.<\/p>\n

But what if you don\u2019t have access to the right software, or want to optimize the existing images on your site?<\/p>\n

An image compression plugin<\/strong> is the easy solution that lets you optimize images on the fly as you upload them to your WordPress site.<\/p>\n

Image compression allows you to reduce the size of your images without affecting their quality. Compression is the process of reducing the image size by removing image info algorithmically that a human eye can’t perceive, so the image still looks clear and sharp.<\/p>\n

The best way to compress high-resolution images is with the the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin<\/a>. Upon activation, you can optimize all the images automatically as you upload. It can also optimize your existing images on your site.<\/p>\n

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2. Leverage lazy load<\/h2>\n

Do you want to use a lot of images on your site without making it load slower?<\/p>\n

Reducing the number of images is not an ideal solution, especially when you want to convey messages that can\u2019t be done with just plain text.<\/p>\n

If you’re using a lot of images on most pages of your WordPress site, you\u2019ll want them to load only when they’re visible to users, which is known as lazy loading. Lazy loading your images helps you to save your bandwidth and improve your page speed.<\/p>\n

To lazy load your images, you just need to activate the Lazy Load plugin<\/a> on your site. It uses jQuery.sonar to load images only when they\u2019re visible to your users.<\/p>\n

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3. Use the right format<\/h2>\n

When editing images for your website, you often need to compromise between the display quality and the file size of the image. Saving images in the right format is the best way to optimize them and keep a balance between display quality and file size.<\/p>\n

Wondering which image file format is best for your website? Here\u2019s a rundown of the most common:<\/p>\n