WordPress Image Compression

WordPress Image Compression

July 17, 2017

Here’s a good rule of thumb: the more images you’re loading on your website, the slower it will load.

WordPress image compression is an important part of keeping your website running fast. Compressing images helps the performance of your website, so users can view your content faster.

Optimizing your images is pretty simple when WordPress is set up correctly.

Setting WordPress Image Sizes

When a WordPress theme is set up, your website should automatically generate multiple sizes of your images when they are uploaded. For example, you don’t want to load a 1000px image as an icon – so WordPress will downsize that 1000px image so it fits perfectly as an icon.

Not sure if you’re loading massive images on your website? Google Page Speed runs a diagnosis of your website to determine just how fast it’s currently running. If you have some large images loading, it will even tell you which ones need to be updated.

Automatic WordPress Image Compression

One of my favourite tools we use on every WordPress website is ShortPixel. This WordPress plugin automatically compresses all of your images by finding ways to make your image file sizes smaller without sacrificing quality.

It is truly amazing just how small your image file sizes become after compression, and the speed of your site is noticeably fast.

Since ShortPixel automatically compresses images as you upload them, there is absolutely nothing else you have to do except to upload your files. Keep in mind it could take a while to run the initial compression.

Upload Smaller Images

Uploading full 5 megabyte high-resolution images can really slow down the performance of your website.

All computers come with some sort of application you can use to save a version of your image for the web. Rather than uploading your full high-res copy of an image, I recommend starting with a smaller size version.

After all, does anyone really need to load a 2000 pixels wide image on the web?

So remember these three steps and your WordPress images will load faster than ever:

  • Setup proper image sizes
  • Setup automatic image compression
  • Upload smaller images