How Does Optimization Work?
While Google recommends a page loading speed of five seconds or less, results from an Unbounce survey revealed that visitors leave a webpage if they wait for over three seconds. The poll also showed that 85% of respondents’ landing pages operated slower than that at a 3G connection.
This puts businesses at a disadvantage, with Amazon estimating that a second of load lag time translates to about USD1.6 billion in sales loss annually.
Several factors contribute to the weight or size, and therefore the speed, of a website: images, JavaScript, videos, fonts, ads, plug-ins, your web host, and content delivery network. Images are the second-highest contributor to web page size behind videos, making up as much as 64% of a website’s size.
This calls for image optimizing techniques to make sure you keep online visitors immersed in your content.
Ways to Optimize Images for the Web
1. Do benchmarking.
Before you do anything, find out how long your site currently takes to load by using Pingdom, GTmetrics, or any other page speed performance checker.
2. Resize images.
Use apps like an online image optimizer to resize the dimensions of your images to what your website needs before uploading them or sending them to your browser. This makes your images load much faster than the original image.
3. Pick the right image file format.
Use lossless compression (PNG format) for images with texts and simple shapes with few colors or sharp edges such as logos. Lossy compression (JPG) is used for images containing a photograph or a natural scene with smooth color variations, while GIFs are used for animations.
4. Use a plain and descriptive file name for your images.
Save your images with names such as 2012-Ford-Mustang-LX-Red.jpg instead of something nondescript like DCMIMAGE10.jpg.
5. Use “alt attributes” wisely.
An alt (short for alternative) attribute is the text that appears when an image in your site fails to display due to a different reader used by your online visitor or a slow connection. Similar to the way you name your image files, use words to uniquely describe your product. For instance, you can use “Close up view Jarrow Formulas” or “Whey Protein ingredients list.”
Benefits of Optimizing Images
Making sure your images contribute to faster web page/website loading speed will:
- Boost your search engine optimization ranking
- Raise your web conversions, or the desired action from your visitors such as making a purchase and registering with your site
- Reduce your bounce rate, or the percentage of visitors who enter your site then leave
- Use less bandwidth, something that networks and browsers will be grateful for
- Consume less storage space on your server
How to Optimize Images Using Resizing.app
Make the Resizing.app your all-around image optimizer. Simply download the app from the Chrome Web Store or go to Resizing.app home page and optimize images online right in your browser.
Once you know the new dimensions and format that your photo needs for your site, go to the Optimize option and upload your photo. Adjust the width and height of the image and move the “optimize” button according to your desired level. Select your preferred format then click Save.