Optimising images for your website is not just about shrinking their file size, if that’s all you’re doing, you won’t see much of a difference.

Instead, it’s about understanding the kind of images you have and how to optimize them for the best visual experience for your visitors.

You are probably aware of the fact that a high-resolution image will take up more space on your site than a low-resolution one.

However, this isn’t the only thing you need to think about when optimizing images.

In this article, we will explore different techniques that can help you get the most out of your photo files while keeping their size as small as possible.

Read on to learn how to optimise images for your WordPress website.

What’s The Best Image Size For WordPress?

One of the simplest ways to optimise images for your WordPress website is by choosing the best size for your images.

This can mean a few things, depending on your goals. The dimensions of the images you upload to your website can affect the speed of your site and the way your images appear in Google Images, so it’s important to choose the right size for each image.

If you are optimising images for SEO, then you should upload images that are 1200 pixels wide and 800 pixels tall. These dimensions are considered the most ideal for getting good search engine rankings. This is because images that are this size have enough detail for a computer to recognize what the image is about.

If you are optimising for performance, then you will want to keep your images around the 500-600 pixel range. This will ensure your images look good while also loading quickly.

Resize Images Before Uploading Them

The best way to make sure you are uploading the ideal image size is to resize them beforehand. For example, if you want to optimise images for your website by uploading an image that’s 1200 pixels wide, you can resize the image to that size before uploading it.

This will ensure that the image doesn’t take up too much space on your site and that it loads quickly for your visitors. If you don’t resize your images before uploading them, then you run the risk of uploading images that are much larger than they need to be.

This means they will take up more space and could slow down your site. Not only that, but if you upload images that are too big, WordPress will resize them for you, and they won’t look as good as they could.

This can be a problem if you are trying to optimise images for your website by choosing the right type of file.

Choose The Right Type Of File

You might not think it matters what type of file you use to save your images, but it can actually make a big difference in terms of optimization. Certain file types are better than others when it comes to keeping your file size as small as possible.

For example, .JPG and .PNG files tend to be smaller than .PDF, .DOC, and .DOCX files. This is because the latter three file types contain a lot of extra information that you don’t necessarily need in your image.

Keep in mind that .JPG and .PNG files will generally be smaller than .PDF and .DOCX files, but it isn’t always the case.

For example, if your image has a lot of text in it, then it might be better to save it as a .DOCX file. This way, you can preserve the text in the image without bloating the file size.

How To Optimise Image For Website

Now that you know what factors go into optimising images for your website, it’s time to actually improve their visual appeal. As we’ve discussed, there are a few things you need to keep in mind when optimizing images for your website.

First, you want to make sure they are the right size. Next, you want to make sure they don’t have too much noise or visual distortion. When you optimise images for your website, you are trying to make them as small as possible without sacrificing quality.

This is why image editing software is so important when optimising images for your website. There are plenty of free and paid image editing programs out there, and you can use whichever you like.

However, we recommend using either Photoshop or GIMP.

Use Responsive Images

One of the best ways to optimise images for your website is by using responsive images. What this means is that you will have more than one version of your image file. Depending on how your website is designed, you can show certain people one version of the image and others another version.

For example, if you have a gallery on your site, you could have one image show the entire gallery and another show just one image in the gallery. This is known as responsive design, and it has a few benefits.

First, it allows you to use fewer images on your site. This can help you optimise images for your website by keeping your site’s size down. It also means that you will have images that look good no matter what device your visitors are using.

Avoid Over-Optimisation

While optimising images for your website is important, you don’t want to overdo it. For example, if you are using Photoshop to optimize your images, there is a risk that you might over-edit them.

You will want to edit your images just enough so that they look good and are the right size. You don’t want to add too many visual effects or use dramatic adjustments that will change your image completely and make it unrecognisable.

For example, you might want to enhance the brightness of your image so that it looks better without darkness in it, or you might want to reduce the brightness if your image is too bright.

You might want to crop your image to make it fit the way you want it to or remove extra visual elements like noise or distracting shapes. You can also sharpen your image to make it look crisper and more defined.

Conclusion

There are a lot of ways to optimise images for your website, but the most important thing is to understand what you are doing.

This means knowing what size your images should be and what type of file will give you the best results. It also means knowing how to edit your images so that they look good without taking up too much space. And, of course, it means knowing how to choose the right image for the right situation.

Now that you understand what goes into optimising images for your website, you are one step closer to creating a visually appealing site.