One of the most compelling reasons to use WordPress for your business website is that you or your team can easily make quick updates and post blog articles, no webmaster needed. However, most don’t realize that managing file sizes is extremely important for keeping your website performance healthy. When I’m troubleshooting slow loading speed, one of the most common culprits is oversized image files.
For example, taking a photo with your phone and adding it to a new blog post is easy. However, most phones create image file sizes that are way too big for website use. While reducing the linear size (width x height) of an image will effectively reduce the file size, you should be taking it a step further by downsampling and compressing the image. This can be tricky to do without complex and bulky programs like Photoshop. Who wants to deal with Photoshop if all you need to do is slim down a blog post image?
ShortPixel to the rescue! ShortPixel is a freemium online image optimizer that makes it incredibly easy and fast to compress image files. Simply upload a JPG, PNG or GIF and be amazed at how much weight is lost—all without a visible decrease in image quality. You can use the options tab to specify a maximum image width and height and preview results to verify that there’s no pixellation in your optimized file. File weight savings of 70 – 95% are not unusual. this counts big toward improving website loading speed and reducing backup sizes.
But what about all the images already on your site? With ShortPixel’s one-time or subscription plans and the ShortPixel WordPress plugin, you can not only automatically optimize future uploads, but also optimize existing images in your Media Library. This makes it a must-have when improving website speed and performance, increasingly a critical factor for optimal Google indexing. When working on a website performance improvement project, this is one of my first go-to tools.
If you’re wondering how your website can benefit, there’s a handy Website Image Optimization Quick Test for a quick preview of file weight savings. Or, try a quick and easy image optimization here. ShortPixel offers flexible and very inexpensive one-time and monthly pricing options. You can also use one account for all your websites or whenever you need a smaller file. Check it out!
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