Image Optimization for WordPress: Tips and Best Practices

Optimizing images is an important part of running a WordPress site. Compressing and properly formatting images will help speed up page loading times and improve the user experience. In this article, we'll look at tips and best practices for optimizing images for your WordPress site.

1. Choosing the right aspect ratio

Choosing the appropriate image format can have a significant impact on file size and image quality. Here are the main formats that are recommended to be used:

  • JPEG – the most popular format for photographs. It supports lossless compression, which allows you to reduce file size without significantly reducing quality.
  • PNG – suitable for images with a transparent background or with a lot of small details. PNG files are usually larger in size but better quality than JPEGs.
  • WebP – a modern format developed by Google. WebP offers lossless compression for photos and lossy compression for graphics, making it an ideal choice for a variety of image types.

2. Use the optimal image size

Using images that are too large can result in page loading times and poor user experience. Make sure the image size matches the size of the container on your site. In WordPress, you can set thumbnail, medium, and large image sizes in Settings > Media.

3. Image compression

Compressing images can help reduce their size without significantly reducing quality. For this you can use plugins such as:

  • WP Smush
  • ShortPixel Image Optimizer
  • Imagify

4. Lazy Loading

Lazy loading images allows you to defer loading of images that are outside the visible area of the page. This speeds up page loading time and saves user traffic. There are several plugins to implement lazy loading in WordPress, such as:

  • a3 Lazy Load
  • Lazy Load by WP Rocket
  • Smush Lazy Load

5. Using Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a system of servers located around the world that copies your content and ensures it is quickly delivered to users from the source closest to them. Using a CDN helps speed up loading of images and other content on your site. Examples of popular CDN providers:

  • Cloudflare
  • KeyCDN
  • Amazon CloudFront

6. Optimize images before uploading

Before uploading images to your WordPress site, it is recommended to optimize them using tools like:

  • Tiny PNG
  • ImageOptim
  • Kraken.io

Conclusion

Image optimization plays an important role in the process of speeding up and improving the performance of your WordPress site. Follow these tips and best practices to make your site faster and more user-friendly. If you want to optimize your website even more, contact our specialists at https://buyreadysite.com/ru/services/wordpress-uskorenie/ for help optimizing and speeding up your WordPress site.

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About Александр К.

My name is Alexander Krikun. I founded in 2014 a company that develops and sells ready-made websites, as well as providing services related to CMS Wordpress and SEO promotion. I have been working with Wordpress for more than 10 years and have been doing SEO promotion for more than 5 years. I am currently working on this site as well.

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