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      3 Easy Ways to Optimize Images for Web


      Visual content can help make your site more engaging and enhance the user experience. However, poorly optimized images can wreak havoc on your website’s performance and even harm your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings.

      Optimizing images for web can help you improve your page load times and cut down on file bloat. This task may sound a little tedious, but with the right tools, you can simplify the process and boost your site’s performance in no time.

      In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of image optimization and its impact on your website. Then, we’ll suggest three easy methods for optimizing photos. Let’s dive in!

      The Importance of Image Optimization

      Image optimization is the process of reducing image file sizes to minimize load times. It typically involves compressing images while preserving their quality.

      Search engines take several factors into consideration when ranking the quality of a website. This includes a site’s Core Web Vitals score.

      Core Web Vitals is a set of metrics that are used by Google to measure a site’s performance. One of the most important metrics is the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP):

      Core Web Vitals LCP report

      LCP measures the time it takes for the largest element on the page to load. This element is usually a hero image.

      Large image files can lead to a poor LCP score. They can also result in high bounce rates, which can have a negative impact on your conversions. Therefore, optimizing images is one of the most effective ways to improve your site’s performance and boost your SEO.

       

      Different Image File Types

      If you use images on your website, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the different file types and when to use them. There are three main types of image formats:

      • JPEG: This file type helps you reduce the image size while retaining decent image quality, and it’s best suited for simple designs and lower-quality images.
      • PNG: PNG images tend to have better quality than JPEGs, and should ideally be used for photographs that contain a lot of detail.
      • GIF: This format uses a low number of colors, so it’s ideal for plain graphics like logos and icons.

      There are other image formats you might use, including vector graphics. This type of image file can be resized without losing its quality. The downside is that vector graphics are not as widely supported as other image types.

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      3 Easy Ways to Optimize Images for the Web

      Fortunately, image optimization doesn’t require technical knowledge. There are a number of tools and best practices that can help you resize, compress, and convert images to the optimal conditions for the web. Let’s take a close look at a few different methods.

      1. Resize and Crop Images with a Photo Editing Tool

      Original images may be much larger than needed for the web. One of the easiest steps you can take to optimize images is to resize or crop them. You can do this with photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop.

      For example, you might take a screenshot to show how something works, but only need to show a small part of the screen. You can crop out all of the unnecessary areas from the screenshot using the default photo editor on your Operating System (OS). This will help you reduce the file size of the image while enabling your audience to focus on what is important.

      If you use Windows, you can easily crop and resize images in Microsoft Photos. To get started, open your image in the Photos app, then click on the first icon in the top menu:

      edit image

      You can then use the drag handles to crop your image:

      cropping images for web

      If you want to resize the image, click on the three-dot icon in the main menu and select Resize:

      resize website image

      This will launch a window where you can select a different file size, or set your own custom dimensions:

       

      resize image

      If you click on Define custom dimensions, you can change the width and height of the image. You can also control its quality from the available slider. For instance, if you want to compress your image to reduce its size, you can set the quality to 50%:

      resize images

      You can then click on Save resized copy. We recommend that you choose a different name for the resized image to avoid overriding the original one.

      2. Use an Online Compression Tool

      Another way to resize photos is to use an online compression tool. This can help you to significantly reduce the image file size without any noticeable changes in quality.

      Some optimization tools enable you to compress images in bulk. This can help you save a lot of time.

      Let’s look at two powerful image compression tools that you can use.

      TinyPNG

      TinyPNG

      TinyPNG is a user-friendly web app that enables you to compress up to 20 images at a time. It is free to use and supports WebP, JPEG, and PNG file types.

      With TinyPNG, you can reduce file sizes while retaining image quality. The result is optimized images that take up less server space and load faster.

      To optimize an image with TinyPNG, simply upload your image files into the box at the top of the page and wait for the compression process to complete:

      TinyPNG

      You can then review the results and download your optimized images. For raw images, you can expect reductions in the range of 40%-70%.

      Kraken.io

      Kraken.io Image Optimization tool

       

      Kraken.io is another online image optimizer that you can use. Like TinyPNG, it’s free (with a premium option) and lets you compress images in bulk. However, it offers more compression options than TinyPNG:

      Kraken.io optimize images for web

      For example, you can choose from three optimization modes, including lossy and lossless. With lossy compression, you can make your image file significantly smaller by removing large amounts of data from your image.

      Meanwhile, lossless compression reduces your file size without removing any data from the image. Therefore, this method is ideal for high-quality images.

      Kraken.io gives you more control over how your images are compressed. You can choose to prioritize image quality over file size or vice versa.

      To optimize an image with Kraken.io, simply upload the images you want to compress, select an optimization method, and choose a download option. For instance, you can download each file individually, download multiple files together in a .zip file or to Dropbox, or share them straight to Facebook and Twitter:

      download optimized images via Kraken.io

      The free version of Kraken.io gives you a lot of options. The major downside is that you are limited to uploading 1MB files. Kraken.io PRO lifts this limitation and adds more settings.

      3. Install a WordPress Image Optimization Plugins

      If you have a WordPress site, there are several image optimization plugins that you can use. These are designed to help you compress WordPress images and make your site load faster.

      Additionally, these plugins enable you to optimize your image right from your WordPress dashboard. Some of them will automatically compress any images that you upload to your site.

      Let’s look at some popular image optimization plugins for WordPress sites.

      Smush

      Smush plugin for image optimization

      Smush is a popular WordPress image optimizer with over a million active installations and a five-star rating. It helps you improve your page load times by compressing and resizing your images.

      For example, the Bulk Smush feature detects images on your site that can be optimized and enables you to compress them in bulk:

      Bulk Smush optimize images for web

      You can also activate lazy loading to make your web pages load even faster:

      lazy load images

      Typically, your media files are loaded all at once, resulting in slower page speeds. With lazy loading, your images will load as users scroll down this page. This can make your content load faster.

      If you upgrade to Smush Pro, you’ll get access to more features, including the option to automatically serve images in Next-Gen WebP format. Plans start at $7.50 per month.

      ShortPixel Image Optimizer

      ShortPixel

      ShortPixel automatically shrinks image file sizes to help boost your site’s performance. However, it converts PNG images to JPEGs. While this can help you achieve faster load times, it may also reduce the quality of your content.

      With ShortPixel, you can choose from different compressions methods, including lossy and lossless:

      ShortPixel image compression settings

      You can also compress your thumbnails and create a backup of your original images. For more options, you can upgrade to the premium version, which starts at $3.99 per month.

      Jetpack

      Jetpack for WordPress

      While Jetpack isn’t an image optimization plugin, its Site Accelerator feature includes an option for optimizing images and hosting them on a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN is a network of servers designed to serve content from the device that’s closest to the user’s geographic location, thus improving page load times.

      You can find these image optimization options under the plugin’s Performance & speed settings:

      Enable Site Accelerator settings in Jetpack

      These features are available for free with Jetpack Boost. The plugin comes with other tools that help you enhance your site’s performance.

      Speed Up Your Site with Optimized Images

      Poorly optimized images can have a negative impact on your site’s performance. Fortunately,  you can speed up your site and improve SEO rankings simply by resizing and compressing your images.

      To recap, here are three easy ways to optimize images for the web:

      1. Resize and crop images using a program like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Photos.
      2. Use an online compression tool like TinyPNG or Kraken.io.
      3. Install a WordPress optimization plugin like Smush Pro, Short Pixel, or Jetpack Boost.

      You can also improve the performance of your site by choosing a powerful hosting plan. Our DreamPress managed WordPress hosting offers a fast and reliable service with 24/7 support. Check out our plans today!

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      How To Optimize a WordPress Installation Before Troubleshooting



      Part of the Series:
      Common WordPress Errors

      This tutorial series explains how to troubleshoot and fix common errors that you may encounter when deploying, maintaining, and updating your WordPress installation.

      Each tutorial in this series includes descriptions of common deployment, maintenance, or update errors, and explores ways to fix and optimize your installation to scale.

      Introduction

      WordPress is a robust Content Management System (CMS) that provides blog and site infrastructure, creation, and publishing tools. While WordPress is a well-maintained, open source CMS, you may sometimes encounter issues or errors that will prevent you from having access to common functionalities.

      In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to perform steps to ward against common WordPress errors in a way that also optimizes your site to prevent those errors from occurring in the future.

      Step 1 — Creating a Backup of Your Site

      Before you begin any troubleshooting process, it’s wise to back up your site. Creating backups of your site, whether manually or by using a plugin, allows you to restore your WordPress installation in the event of an error. A backup also serves to protect your WordPress site against security threats, data loss, and more.

      Learn How To Back Up Your WordPress Site to Object Storage with our tutorial, or explore WordPress Backup Plugins to automate the backup process.

      Step 2 — Making Sure your Cache is Clear

      A cache is a temporary storage space that allows browsers and programs to take a snapshot of your site and store temporary files and data, to load your site faster and increase performance.

      While caching does generally give a performance boost to site load times and improves user experience, sometimes errors with visual elements may be a result of a cached version of your site being served. Clearing your browser cache as well as your WordPress cache typically solves issues with older or cached versions of your site being shown.

      This list shares step-by-step information to clear your browser cache on any browser, and there are a number of site caching plugins available that allow you to clear and maintain WordPress cache size, in order to optimize your site’s appearance and performance.

      Step 3 — Auditing Your Plugins

      Plugins are third-party software added to WordPress installations to extend functionality. Even though these extensions provide helpful and convenient features, they can sometimes conflict with each other and cause your site to experience issues in performance, speed, and security.

      To audit your plugins and potentially troubleshoot an error, start by ensuring that each of your plugins are updated to its most recent version. Next, you can also deactivate all plugins and reactivate them one-by-one.

      While inside of your WordPress site’s admin panel, click Plugins, then All Plugins. Within your list of plugins, click the box to Select All, then click Deactivate from the dropdown above the checkbox. Click Apply to deactivate all plugins.Then, select one plugin at a time and click Activate to reactivate each of them while monitoring your website to identify any issues .

      Conclusion

      This tutorial highlighted three steps that you can take to prevent your WordPress site from experiencing common errors, and to maintain the health of your WordPress installation.

      For more information on optimizing your WordPress installation on Ubuntu, visit our tutorial, How to Optimize WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04.



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      How to Optimize WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04


      Introduction

      Optimizing WordPress installations gives the clients and individuals who use your sites the performance, speed, and flexibility they’ve come to expect with WordPress. Whether you’re managing a personal site or a suite of installations for various clients, taking the time to optimize your WordPress installations increases efficiency and performance.

      In this tutorial, you’ll explore how to optimize WordPress installations in a way that’s built for scale, including guidance on configuration, speed, and overall performance.

      Prerequisites

      This is a conceptual article sharing different ways to approach optimization of a WordPress installation on Ubuntu 20.04. While this tutorial references the use of a managed solution via our WordPress 1-Click App, there are many different starting points, including:

      Whichever you choose, this tutorial will start with the assumption that you have or are prepared to install a fully-working WordPress installation configured with an administrative user on Ubuntu 20.04.

      Step 1 — Consider Your Installation

      During the installation and creation of your WordPress installation there are a few variables to take into account, including the location of your potential users, the scope of your WordPress site or suite of sites, and the maintenance and security preferences set that allow your site to be continually optimized. Taking the time to dive into each thoughtfully before building out your site will save time and benefit your WordPress installation as it grows.

      Considering Your Site’s Potential

      The first step in optimizing your WordPress site is to have a deep understanding of how you intend to use and grow your site. Will it be one site, or a network of sites? Is your site a static or dynamic website? Answering these questions before setting up your installation can inform some of your initial decisions regarding hosting, storage size, and performance.

      For example, if you’d like to build a personal blog, caching and optimizing images and visual content is important to consider. If you intend to create a community or ecommerce site with concurrent visitors and frequently changing data, considerations for server resources should be made. Being thoughtful about your intention for your WordPress installation from the start will guide the usefulness of security and performance tweaks made to your site, and lend to an overall more efficient installation.

      Optimizing Installation Preferences

      There are a few preferences that are important to consider while installing WordPress that can reduce latency and increase performance on your site.

      Hosting and Included Software

      First, select a hosting provider that provides the latest WordPress, Apache, MySQL, and PHP software with firewall and SSL certificate capabilities. A reliable and modern hosting provider will give you the best start for your LAMP stack installation. With shared hosting, be aware of server usage and customers per server to ensure the best performance for your site. Choosing the right hosting provider for your needs will help you prevent downtime and performance errors.

      Location and Latency

      Be aware of the location of your servers or datacenters when starting a new WordPress installation, and choose the location that best suits the need of your site and general location of your visitors and users. Latency, the time it takes for data to be transmitted between your site and users, fluctuates based on location. The WordPress documentation on site analytic tools explains how to track visitor location data, as well as the number of visits to your site. Having an idea from the start about where your visitors are from can help determine where to host your site and provide them with a faster browsing experience.

      Step 2 — Consider Your Theme

      There are a wide range of available themes that can be used or customized for WordPress. Many themes can be configured with user-friendly drag and drop interfaces, integrated with custom plugins and more. When setting up your WordPress site, it’s a good idea to initially consider only the essential features that you’ll use for the lifecycle of your site, adding more as you grow.

      Optimizing Theme Configuration

      Starting with a lightweight theme can help your installation to load more efficiently. A theme will require fewer database calls and by keeping your site free of unnecessary code, your users will have fewer delays in site speed and performance.

      For any theme selected, be sure to turn off or disable any features offered with the theme that you won’t need or use. These can be preferences offered in the Appearance section of the WordPress dashboard, typically under Theme Editor or Customize. Turning off features you don’t use reduces the number of requests and calls happening to query for data in the background.

      While there are a number of free and paid options for WordPress themes available online, many use page builders that add excess shortcode and unused code that will affect the performance of your site. Consider your use case when deciding whether or not to use a page builder, as they typically include a lot of extra processes that will have an impact on your site’s speed.

      Considering Plugin Use

      WordPress plugins offer extended functionality for WordPress installations through added code that allows users to customize their installations to suit their specific needs. There are over 56,000 currently available plugins, making them an appealing way to add additional features to a WordPress site.

      While plugins can increase the efficiency of your site, care should be taken in selecting quality plugins that are maintained and updated regularly. Because many plugins not only add code to your site but entries to your WordPress installation’s database, using too many plugins may cause site speed issues over time.

      Step 3 — Optimize for Security and Performance

      Once you have installed all of the plugins, widgets, and additional features you’d like to add to your WordPress installation, there are a few more optimization options to try within the WordPress dashboard that could positively impact your site’s speed and performance.

      Tweaking WordPress Settings

      First, be sure to change your site’s login address. Because most WordPress administrative login pages end in /wp-admin, this page is often prone to attacks. There are a number of tools available that enable you to change your login URL — be sure to select the one that works best for your use case.

      Next, consider the Site Health tool, located in the Tools section of your WordPress dashboard:

      picture of WordPress Site Health page

      Consider the results shown, and follow the instructions found in each dropdown on the Status tab to improve security or performance as mentioned within the tabs.

      Using the built-in configuration offered in the WordPress dashboard ensures that you’ve covered all of the readily available configuration tweaks for your installation.

      Caching for Site Speed

      Caching can also help improve your WordPress site’s performance and speed. Caching, a core design feature of the HTTP protocol meant to minimize network traffic while improving the perceived responsiveness of the system as a whole, can be used to help minimize load times when implemented on your site. WordPress offers a number of caching plugins that are helpful in maintaining a snapshot of your site to serve static HTML elements, reducing the amount of PHP calls and improving page load speed.

      Conclusion

      In this tutorial you explored a number of different techniques that you can use to make your WordPress installation on Ubuntu 20.04 faster and more efficient. Following the suggestions in this tutorial will help ensure that your site’s performance isn’t an issue as you grow in users and content on your site.

      To learn more about some of the security practices and WordPress optimization tips that are mentioned in this guide, visit our tutorial, “How To Configure Secure Updates and Installations in WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04”.



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