Is your WordPress website slow because of large images? Large uncompressed images increase your site’s loading time.
Site loading time is a Google ranking factor. Your visitors won’t wait for a slow site to load.
In my post, I show you how to compress images without losing quality on WordPress.
Let’s start.
How To Compress WordPress Images Without Losing Quality
To optimize images on WordPress, you must resize and compress images.
Resizing reduces the file size on your site and improves load time.
Compressing images removes details to reduce file size.
WordPress stores three copies of each image you upload. There is a thumbnail, medium, and large. It is essential to optimize your images.
How To Resize WordPress Images
I recommend you resize images before uploading them to WordPress.
There are many free image resizing websites you can use to do this.
I like to use iloveimg.com.
To resize, drag your image to the blue box.
Here is an image I downloaded from Pixabay.com.
The image is large. I must resize it before uploading it to WordPress.
To find the ideal size for your website, go to Settings on your WordPress admin and select Media.
Resize your image the same as the large setting.
For my image, I change the Width(px) to 1024.
Then click Resize Images.
Download the resized image.
My image is ready to upload to WordPress.
How To Compress WordPress Images
The image I uploaded to WordPress is only 72.4kb. I can reduce this by compressing the image.
The best image compressing plugin is ShortPixel (*Paid Link). I use ShortPixel on my sites. It is an excellent image compressing tool.
Shortpixel compresses uploaded images automatically. You need to set the compression type.
I use Lossy.
You can compare different settings from your media library.
Select the hamburger menu and choose Compare.
After a few seconds, a window opens to compare the original with the compressed version of the image.
You can change the image type and open the compare feature.
After compressing, this image is now 23.8kb.
This image is resized and compressed. The quality is the same as the original.
How Much Is ShortPixel?
Is your website new? You can use the free 100 images per month option for new websites.
The free 100 per month option compresses them in the same way as a paid plan.
There is no reduction in quality for choosing the free plan.
One hundred images get used fast because WordPress saves three copies of each uploaded image.
I recommend using the one-time option. I buy 30,000 for $19.99.
Here is my remaining balance.
Do You Need To Optimise WordPress Images?
To test your site loading speed, open your website in an incognito Google Chrome browser.
It is essential to use an incognito browser because extensions interfere with testing.
On your keyboard, hold Ctrl/Shift/J together to open DevTools.
From the menu, click Lighthouse.
To check page loading speed on a mobile device, select Navigation, Mobile, and Performance. Then click Analyze Page Load.
You must keep the window open when testing. After a few seconds, you get the results.
My homepage scored 85 out of 100. I am happy with that score.
Under the performance score, Google offers opportunities to improve your score.
I have no issues with images because ShortPixel is an excellent plugin.
Sign up for 100 free images to test ShortPixel (*Paid Link) on your website.
To run a desktop page speed test, change to Desktop.
I scored 94 out of 100.
I had one opportunity to improve this score.
Continue running tests on your blog posts. If you have opportunities with your images, I recommend using ShortPixel (*Paid Link).
Website Pagespeed Test
This website’s score is 63 out of 100 on a mobile device.
The top two opportunities on this site are with images. Shortpixel does this for your site.
This website’s score on a desktop is 76 out of 100.
The issue for this site is images.
Conclusion
Site loading speed is a Google ranking factor. Large images cause websites to load slowly.
Slow websites are bad for user experience. Your visitors won’t wait for a page to load.
Use Google’s page speed test in an Incognito browser to find opportunities to improve your site’s loading speed.
If you have opportunities with images, I recommend using ShortPixel (*Paid Link). It is the best image optimizer for WordPress websites.
I hope you found my article about compressing images informative. If you have questions, please leave them below.
