The Value in Images
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Pictures have the power to represent dramatically more than words could ever on a single page. A picture is mesmerizing and curious, it’s up for interpretation and detailed with hundreds of different endings. That’s why it is critically important to ensure having that captivating image on your website, doesn’t negatively affect the entire page. Here’s where image optimization comes in.
What is it?
Image optimization is the process of having high-speed, good-quality images on your site all while keeping the size small. The goal is to decrease the size of the image, while still maintaining its high quality. This can be done in a few ways.
Methods
Photoshop/Squoosh: these are platforms that will optimize the images for you after you place them in and follow the commands. It automatically reduces the file to your request.
WordPress: CMS’s like WordPress will automatically optimizes images for us, however, it may not be enough based on your goal.
Why does it matter?
One of the main reasons that it’s vital to ensure your images are optimized is because audiences tend to get driven away by slow loading times. For example, according to Inc. about 39% of website visitors will leave the site if there is a long wait for images to load. This negatively affects business and engagement because users don’t even have the chance to see what the website has to offer before pulling the plug. In fact, you only have a few seconds to grab the attention of users when they click onto your site.
These are the main things that users like me would look for when browsing a website:
User-friendliness
High-speed internet
Customer service
Reliable content
Each of these is vital to having a successful website, and many of them rely on having your images optimized.
Another reason it’s so important is because images are often the first thing visitors see when on a website. They have the power to quickly draw your attention, however, this can backfire if the image if the attention is not good attention. For example, if the image is low quality, viewers will quickly become less interested because this has a negative/low-quality reflection on the entire site. This can be because a low-quality image can lead to thoughts of a less trustworthy and less reliable website.
Now that we’ve established the value in optimizing web images, I’d like to give it a test.
Before Optimizing
After Optimizing
To optimize this image, I used the app Squoosh. I didn’t change the size of the image but instead, I changed the export file to a “browser JPEG” which decreased the amount of space the image was taking up by 84%. Moving forward, this is an excellent technique to preserving and highlighting the value of web images.