In 2019, the average mobile web page size is 1,6 MB. Images typically represent about half of the average web page because their use requires a lot of resources.

If you've never taken image optimization seriously and your WordPress site is slow, you have everything to gain from doing it right. If your images are loading slowly, it usually means there is a problem on your WordPress blog. By focusing on your images, you can avoid many site performance issues.

In this tutorial, I will explain why optimizing images is the best starting point to optimize the performance of your WordPress blog. We'll also go over some tips to get you started if you need to fix slow loading WordPress images.

Why you should start with images when considering improving performance

The web is now a multimedia-rich landscape with videos, podcasts, and more images than ever before. Images can help your site stand out in a crowded media landscape, but they come at a cost. If you don't serve your images correctly, your site could be at a disadvantage. If you make images load faster, you can improve your site's performance, provide a mobile-friendly user experience, improve SEO and increase conversions.

Images are worse when they are badly done

Oversized images actually weigh down your web pages.

If you are targeting a 1,5 MB file size for a web page and you are adding a few 2 MB images each, you will exceed that limit with a single image.

But the images can be beaucoup greater. The average file size produced by an average DSLR is between 4 and 12MB! If you don't know better and use a 12MB image, or worse, more than a 12MB image, then you are really going to ruin your page performance.

If you get combined images less than 1MB, you could potentially reduce your page weight by 20MB. Obviously, this is a major exaggeration, but it is to illustrate how much excess can add up if you don't do it right.

Something as simple as resizing your images can dramatically improve performance and save you on overhead.accommodation. Your host charges you more for the disk space that all those large images take up.

We live in a first mobile world

By optimizing your images for mobile, you ensure a great user experience for users of all types of devices, so they keep coming back to your site.

The popularity of mobile devices has exploded to such an extent that we are now living in a world where mobiles are the most used. In July 2018, Google announced that the speed of the page was a ranking factor for mobile searches.

This means that when you create your sites, you need to make sure that you're providing images that fit for mobile devices that have slower data connections.

If you stream Retina images destined for desktops in a small window, you are wasting data. For your visitors who don't have unlimited data plans, it can be very frustrating and expensive.

The search optimized image is back

Not only has Google changed the impact of mobile optimization on rankings, but it has also changed the way image search results are displayed, leading to profound changes in the rankings. SEO images .

Now you can drive traffic to your site when your images appear in Image Search.

In 2013, Google added an image view button to image search results. When someone clicked that button, they were taken directly to the image instead of the web page the image was on. Sites reported a 63% drop in traffic thanks to image search.

In 2018, Google was forced to remove the image display button, so traffic started pouring in again. There are many possibilities for your images to rank well because SEOs have neglected SEO image optimization.

Image optimization affects bottom row

Images can slow down your WordPress site if they are not properly served and may reduce your conversion rate.

If you sell products on your site, you can use the Google mobile page speed test to show you the amount of your potential income. On the results page, scroll down and open the Assess the impact of a faster site section.

Capture google income
I mean, this number is a pretty compelling argument

Not only will image optimization drive more conversions, but it will also determine the number of leads you meet through search traffic.

Google's goal is to provide the best possible user experience, from search to answer. If you improve users' performance by providing them with a great user experience, Google will rank your site more easily in search results.

How to make your WordPress site faster by improving images

Now that we've explained why images are the best place to start, I'll explain some simple tasks you can do on your site to speed up the loading of images.

Delete unnecessary images

One of the easiest ways to reduce page weight and reduce the number of HTTP requests is to limit the number of images on your web pages. If a webpage takes longer than 3 seconds to load, consider removing items and images that are not contributing to conversions.

Always make sure your images are the right size for their container.

If your images are not showing when your site loads, it is most likely because your images are oversized and taking too long to download. To resolve this issue, you must determine the size of the image and then replace your site image with an image of the appropriate size.

See our article on resizing images to discover some methods to do it.

Use the correct format and use the next-gen formats if possible

Some file formats are larger than others, with animated GIFs being one of the most inefficient file formats to date. You should use the correct format to meet your needs and help you produce the smallest file size possible.

Optimize WordPress Fast by enabling delayed loading

Deferred loading is a quick and easy way to defer loading images and other items under the mail. If the image is not in the browser window, the browser waits for it to download so that it can display what the visitor can see much faster.

Progressive loading is relatively easy to implement and there are plenty of lightweight plugins to get the job done. The size of plug-in files is typically around 1-3KB and can be configured in a matter of minutes.

Use CDN to speed up image loading

CDNs have locations all over the world, so the data transfer needed to load your images is much faster. Using a CDN to deliver your images is an easy way to load images faster into WordPress.

Although your host may include a CDN with your accountaccommodation To improve your site's performance, Smush Pro's CDN was designed specifically with image optimization in mind.

Want an easy way to optimize WordPress?

You still have a lot to do to make your WordPress site faster. If you do not know where to start, the pictures are a good starting point. Properly optimized images provide many benefits and, with all-in-one solutions such as these 5 plugins to compress imagesIt's easy to dramatically improve images on your site in just minutes.