As a designer, you understand that images, photos and graphics are important for websites. For this reason, it’s important that these visuals are properly optimised. Consider the fact that an image which is too large can slow down the page’s loading speed. This leads to site users who leave out of sheer frustration. However, there’s also the problem of retaining the quality of the image, while limiting the file’s size.
Why is Image Size and Optimisation So Important?
The answer is because you’ll have to deal with other problems in addition to frustrated site users. Not only will visitors not stay on the site, but they won’t follow through on CTAs, and become paying customers. But wait, there’s more!
Another problem you’ll have to deal with is a high bounce rate, which directly tied to site visitors quickly leaving the website. Why is this a problem? Even if you have a ton of traffic, your site will eventually fall in Google’s ranking algorithms. Eventually you’ll not only lose the traffic you have, but you won’t gain new traffic either.
If you want to keep your current site visitors, and gain new traffic, then you’ll want to ensure all images on your site load faster and maintain their quality. This will go a long way in improving the site’s SEO and how you rank within Google’s search engine. The faster your pages load, and the lower site’s bounce rate, the higher you’ll rank in the search engine results.
Image Optimiser Tools
We’ve put together a list of tools that can help optimise your images. Let’s take a look!
1). Smush Pro
- This is a WordPress plugin from WPMU DEV. With this plugin you can:
- Compress & optimize JPG, PNG, GIF, and WebP files
- Resize and rescale images automatically
- With one click, quickly optimise all the images on your site
- Automatically optimise new images when you upload them
- Quickly and easily restore original image files
Smush Pro is available as a limited free plugin, but you can gain access to the tool’s other features by paying for a WPMU membership that comes in at $49/month. Additional features include hosting, access to other premium plugins, better security, and more.
2). Kraken
Kraken optimises and compresses images and can be used by WordPress, and other apps. You can use the tool through their website for free or choose to opt for a Pro membership which gives you access to the API, along with WordPress & Magneto plugins.
The services offers both lossless and lossy optimisation and allows you to specify the image’s resized dimensions. The free version is great for occasional use, but you may want to go ahead and pay for the Pro membership if you need to use the tool on a regular basis. One of the benefits of choosing the Pro version is that all new images uploaded to your site will automatically be optimised. There’s also a bulk optimisation tool that makes it fast and easy to optimise and compress all the images currently on your site.
3). ShortPixel:
This is a Saas option that works to optimise images through an API. This service can be applied through different tools, which includes as a WordPress plugin. The site offers:
- Up to 90% compression of images
- Support for a wide range of file formats including JPG, PNG, GIF, PDF, and more
- Both lossy and lossless optimisation
- Optimisation of both new and old images
- Privacy protection of all processed image files
If you have a WordPress site, it’s easy to use ShortPixel as a plugin. You can use it to optimise all new images going forward, as well as processing all older images. They also give you the option to store original image files in a backup folder, to easily restore them later.
ShortPixel provides different pricing plans, along with a free version. The free plan allows optimisation of up to 100 images each month. Their paid plans begin at $4.99/month and go up from there.
4). JPEG Optimiser
Don’t be taken aback at the outdated look of this tool—it’s free and is very effective and easy to use. If you need to use this type of service on a regular basis, JPEG Optimiser may not the be best choice for you. This is because there is no API or WordPress plugin available. You’ll have to visit the site regularly in order to compress and optimise all of your images one at a time.
Having said that, if you only need to use it once in a while and have one or two images to optimise, then this could be a great choice for you. You can use the service without even signing up.
The tool is easy to use and only gives you a few options to choose from. All you do is choose the file to optimise, choose the compression level and that’s it. You can also resize the file with this tool.
5). Tiny PNG:
Tiny PNG is similar to JPEG Optimiser; it’s easy to use and there’s a free version if you only have one or two images to optimise once in a while. However, this may not be the best tool if you need to frequently optimise new photos.
Also similar to JPEG Optimiser, Tiny PNG doesn’t have an API or a WordPress plugin. If you have a number of images to optimise, you’ll find this a manual, time-consuming process.
Tiny PNG’s free version allows to optimise PNG or JPG files up to 20 at a time. Their Pro version allows you to optimise 20 images or more at a time, and costs $25/a year.
These are only a few of the many options available to optimise your website images. Choose the tool that’s best for you. For instance, if you have a WordPress site, you may find it a better option to choose a tool that offers a WordPress plugin. On the other hand, if you only have to optimise one or two images every once in a while, then a tool with a website option may be the best choice for your image optimisation needs.
