Trust us , you don’t want Google to penalize your website or effect your websites load speed with the wrong formatted images. Large images will slow down your web’s loading time which creates a less than optimal user experience. Not to worry, your images can be optimized to increase your sites performance, although quality of your image maybe reduce. We will help guide you to find the perfect balance for your images on your website.

WHAT SIZE SHOULD MY IMAGES BE FOR A WEBSITE?

Answer: Firstly, the most important aspect to consider is what the image is going to be used for. For example, is it a cover image, banner, or maybe a thumbnail or icon? The larger the image size, there more bandwidth it will consume, try not to upload an image larger than the dimensions required.

If you are uploading the images yourself, we would recommend a file size of less than 300kb, smaller size images will improve your page’s load speed. A estimated image size on a website would be in the ratio 900 x 900 to 400 x 400 depending on what the image is used for.

WILL MY IMAGES EFFECT THE LOADING SPEED OF MY WEBSITE?

Answer: Yes! high quality images will consume more storage space, the same to say with larger images. However, if you feel the need for a large image then it should be optimized to significantly reduce the file size but in return this will reduce the quality. It’s important to be aware that uploading files that are too large can have a negative impact on your website’s loading time which can result in users leaving your website before it even loads.

WHICH IMAGE FORMAT SHOULD I USE?

Answer: For webdesign make sure your images are saved as a Jpeg, unless you need an image with a transparent background, therefor you should save it as a .png.

SHOULD I NAME MY IMAGE FILES?

Google will identify the images by its name on your site if there is no alt tag, giving your image an Alt tag will help google recognise what the image is about. This then can improve the chances of it being found on google search. For example: if your image name is IMG_001.jpg, change it to something descriptive such as diamond-dog-collar.jpg.

Q. PLUGINS TO REDUCE IMAGE SIZE

Answer: There are plenty of plugins out there that can reduce your images file size and ratio. Ultimately if the right formatted file was uploaded then this step shouldn’t be required.

Conclusion…

Don’t underestimate the importance of the size and quality of the images you upload to your site. This can impact on your websites overall performance were google can penalise your website, which can make your website suffer in the rankings. Taking the extra time to getting the perfect balance for your image will help you achieve a professional finish in the long run and a website that effectively converts users into customers. If you sell need help contact us for more information.