Have you noticed your site traffic drop recently? Check your page speed. It’s one of Google’s most vital website metrics. Images have always been the leading culprit of a slow-loading page, and SEO experts across the board know it. This is why a core focus of every single optimization strategy is to 1) minimize and compress image files and 2) lessen image load times to as fast as possible. And, let’s face it, plugins are GREAT for helping website managers do exactly that!
In this article, we break down which WordPress-specific image plugins website managers should be implementing right away. The use of one or more of them will lead to ease of page use for the visitor and boost those super-fast load times that even Looney Tunes’ Speedy Gonzalez couldn’t match.
Why Does Faster Page Speed Matter?
If Google’s standards matter to search engine ranking, then page speed matters. Page speed is a part of Google’s Core Web Vitals Largest Contentful Paint. The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric measures the rendering time of the largest image or text block on your page.
2.5 seconds or less is considered a good LCP score. To measure your website’s LCP measurement you can use this free tool.
Here are the elements that Google takes into consideration when measuring for LCP:
- Image elements
- Image element inside an <svg> element
- Any type of video elements
- Background images
- Sections or blocks of text
On WordPress sites specifically, the use of image optimization plugins can make quick and light work of optimizing image size for page speed. That’s precisely what this blog is about so without further ado, let’s take a look at which tools you will want to consider when optimizing page speed.
WP Compress
WP Compress Is one of our favorite plugins. Not only does the tool offer some of the most popular image optimization features, but it’s also one of the most affordable and has many additional features users love to take advantage of when optimizing their websites.
Here are some of our favorite features of WP Compress:
- Client reporting
- Lazy loading
- Remote configuration
- Monthly client quotas
- Bulk optimization
- Conversion into the next-gen formats (such as WebP)
Optimole
Optimole is great because it is very specific to image optimization for your website. It will easily help you to get rid of any bulky images by compressing JPEG and PNG files while preserving quality (nobody wants to see a poor quality image on your website right?), so your visitors enjoy faster page load times and a better viewing experience.
Oh, and don’t forget all of that contributes to a higher ranking on Google - bingo!
Here are some things we love about Optimole:
- Lazy loading
- User-friendly, simple setup
- Uses a free CDN (content delivery network)
- 4 compression levels included (auto, high, medium, low)
EWWW Image Optimizer
With over 1 million active users currently, EWWW Image Optimizer is by far one of the most popular plugins out there.
Why is it so popular you might ask? Because there are so many features available in their free version, although there are also some amazing features available in premium for an affordable price. Here are just a few of them:
- No limit on the size of image files to be compressed
- Preserves original files
- Bulk image optimization
- Lazy loading
- Adds missing dimensions to images
- Support for the most popular image formats (JPG, PNG, PDF, etc.)
Imagify
Imagify is a powerful tool that can help turn your entire website into an SEO image-optimized website. In addition to decreasing load times, the tool improves the website’s overall performance.
Some great features of this tool to be noted are:
- So much to offer in both free and paid versions
- Automatic resizing and optimization during upload
- Support for WebP, PDF, GIF, JPG, and PNG.
- Bulk optimization of your entire media library.
- Different levels of compression (Normal, Aggressive, and Ultra)
reSmush.it
reSmush.it allows the user to optimize their pictures up to 5MB for free in addition to providing image size reductions based on several of their advanced algorithms.
Trusted by over 400,000 websites, we think this tool is a great one to consider when looking into a trusted page-optimizing system.
Including:
- Creates a copy of your original images
- Has a popular slider feature that allows you to precisely adjust the compression level.
- Bulk image optimization
- Support for so many image formats (including JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, and TIF)
TinyPNG
Don’t be fooled by the “tiny” in TInyPNG’s name, this tool is a BEAST and so many SEO experts trust it for a reason.
The tool is optimized to handle mostly just PNG and JPEG formats but there are many other features that make it worthy to consider.
- Bulk optimization of ALL images in the library
- No image file size limits (yipee!)
- Automatic optimization during an image upload
- Set desired height and width of uploaded images
- Works for multiple websites with one API key
Optimus
Think Transformers’ Optimus Prime, except make it SEO. Optimus is a popular image optimization tool that offers a smarter approach to helping speed up web pages but also claims to reduce image files by up to 70%!
Not to be confused with Optimole (the plugin mentioned earlier), there are a few standout features of Optimus to take into consideration:
- Works very well with WooCommerce (the Google integration many online eCommerce stores use)
- Bulk optimization of all images
- Special support for retina images
- Automatic image optimization
Imsanity
Imsanity is an image-optimizing plugin valued for its minimal and lightweight interface.
Keep in mind that because this tool is so lightweight, it is great for the simple task of optimizing website images, but its functions may be more limited than other tools.
There are plenty of great features but here are ones that we think are most noteworthy:
- Either remove or keep original images
- Bulk image optimization
- The ability to choose JPG image quality (the most popular function)
- Automatic optimization during upload
Conclusion
And there you have it! We hope this article will help you choose the plugin that best meets your WordPress website’s needs. Each is a powerful tool in its own way. One tool alone often doesn’t meet every website’s needs, which is why we wanted to break each of them down to help make your decision easier. Now it’s your turn to decide.
With the increased demands for faster loading pages, these plugins will help you stay on top of the consumer’s and Google’s needs. You will not only experience faster page load times but also be able to offer a better experience to the user and better chances for you to rise in the SERPs.
Good Luck and don’t forget to check out our other blogs on helping your website reach its full SEO potential.
