How to Optimize Images for Web/Mobile?

The factual reality is that the vast majority of the total page weight is composed of digital media, like videos and images. Each time you add a new posting, you most likely use at least one GIF or image. The heavier they are, the slower they work, making visitors wait longer for your pages to load. This is especially critical for mobile users, who typically have a lower connection speed and performance compared to desktop users. As a result, many of them are likely to leave your site before it is fully displayed.

Your site’s speed has a crucial impact on your overall success. In order to increase your chances of achieving favorable outcomes, you should start with images as they are the ones that typically take up the most space on your site. But you cannot simply delete them, can you? So the only solution is to optimize your digital media. But what exactly does it mean? How can optimization improve the performance of your site? In this posting, we will try to answer these questions, and provide tips and recommendations on how to optimize images for web/mobile. So let’s get started.

What is Image Optimization for Mobile?

When it comes to creating a business online (especially ecommerce) every single second is precious as it can make a huge difference in returning customers. Besides, it will have a negative impact on page indexing, UI/UX design, and user behavioral factors. In order to avoid this issue, image optimization for mobile is necessary.

Optimizing images for web/mobile devices refers to adjusting them to a smaller size, without compromising on quality. In other words, it is the process of improving the overall performance of a site by reducing the size of images and/or changing their format. By optimizing your digital media, you can make a huge difference to your sites’ overall performance.

All the images on a site should be optimized in a way so that they do not affect the site loading speed as well as the perception of basic information. Optimizing digital media for mobile reduces crashes on the visitors’ side, improves SEO and page ranking. Consequently, this will positively affect conversion rates and increase sales. Image compression improves website performance, both for mobile and web.

Why Optimizing Images?

Optimizing your digital media means improving your SEO that impacts the way search engines determine the ranking of your site
Website loading time has a direct correlation to your profit. The vast majority of web users expect webpages to load in no more than two seconds. On the mobile, almost half of the users expect your site to be fully displayed in no more than four seconds. Just a few seconds less or more can significantly affect your sales, which is especially important for ecommerce

Tips to Compress/Optimize Images for Mobile

Resize and compress all the digital photos before uploading

Check the image size every time you upload it to your system, and reduce its file size manually using a simple image resizer tool or specialized photo editing software (e.g. Photoshop), and then compress it. Resizing digital media can save up to 50% bandwidth, compressing them saves up to 45%.

Optimize image delivery

Your storage or servers are located in one particular location, whereas your customers may be located anywhere across the globe. Content Delivery Network allows you to reduce the load on your servers, making image delivery more efficient and quick.

My CMS cuts image file sizes for me, doesn’t it?

Many WordPress users prefer to resize the images using built-in tools. But does it help? Nope, not really. The thing is that content management system just makes images look smaller than the ones you have uploaded initially. But this does not make their weight any smaller. Solution? Resize and compress them yourself.

Know your image formats

Probably, the most used image types are PNG and JPEG. Each of them has their strengths and weaknesses. JPEG is a compressed format, which means a smaller file size, but less quality. This format works best for photograph-like images with lots of colors. PNG is an uncompressed format, which means a bigger size, but better quality. This format is great for textual banners, logos, and other images that do not have lots of detail/colors. Selecting the correct file format can save up to 40% image bandwidth.

Use lazy loading

Do not display all the images on your site at once. Make them load gradually row-by-row, and limit the number of images in each row to a maximum of ten images.

Key Takeaways

Digital media are having a powerful impact on your site loading time, thereby impacting conversion rates, UI/UX design, traffic, and search engine ranking. If you do not reduce the size of images on your pages, they will significantly slow down the site loading. So If you have a site, image optimization for web/mobile should be at the forefront of planning as by doing so you are cutting down your site’s weight, making it lighter and thus, faster. Always optimize your digital media before uploading them, but try to not compromise too much on quality. At Loonar Studios, we are always ready to help you improve any element of your UI/UX design to make your site more successful. We would also recommend you to do a full audit of your site and delete all images that do not actually help you achieve anything. Contact us if you have any questions. Cheers!

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