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Step-by-Step Guide: How to Compress Images for Your Website Without Losing Quality
Web Performance
Image Optimization
SEO

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Compress Images for Your Website Without Losing Quality

Posted by TexyTools on November 10, 2023

If your website is slow, there's a good chance your images are the biggest culprit. Large, unoptimized images can bloat your page size, leading to slow load times, frustrated users, and lower search engine rankings.

The good news is that you can dramatically speed up your site by compressing your images—and you don't have to sacrifice much, if any, visual quality. Here’s a simple, step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Choose the Right File Format

Before you even think about compression, make sure your image is in the right format for the job.

  • JPEG (or JPG): Best for photographs and complex images with lots of colors and gradients.
  • PNG: Best for graphics with hard lines, text, or when you need a transparent background (like a logo).
  • WebP: A modern format that's often the best of both worlds. It can produce significantly smaller file sizes than both JPEG and PNG at the same quality.

If your image isn't in the ideal format, use an Image Converter to switch it. For most website photos, converting to WebP is a great first step.

Step 2: Resize Your Image to the Correct Dimensions

There's no reason to upload a 4000-pixel wide image if it's only going to be displayed in a 800-pixel wide container on your blog. This is a huge source of wasted bandwidth.

Before compressing, resize your image to the maximum dimensions it will ever be displayed at. For a full-width blog post image, this is often around 1200px to 1600px wide. Use an Image Cropper or any basic photo editor to resize your image.

Step 3: Compress the Image

This is where the magic happens. Compression removes unnecessary data from the image file to shrink its size.

  1. Go to our free Image Compressor.
  2. Upload your resized image (JPG, PNG, or WebP).
  3. Use the quality slider to find the sweet spot.
    • For JPEGs & WebP: A quality setting between 75-85% is usually the sweet spot. It provides a massive reduction in file size with little to no visible loss in quality.
    • For PNGs: PNG compression is "lossless," but our tool can still reduce the file size by optimizing the color palette.
  4. Compare the "Original Size" with the "New Size" to see the savings.
  5. Download your newly compressed image.

The Goal: What's a Good File Size?

While it depends on the image's dimensions, here are some good targets for web images:

  • Hero images / Banners: Try to stay under 250 KB.
  • Blog post images / Content graphics: Aim for under 150 KB.
  • Thumbnails / Small graphics: Aim for under 50 KB.

Why This Matters

  • User Experience (UX): Faster load times mean happier users. Visitors are more likely to stay on your site and engage with your content if it loads quickly.
  • SEO: Page speed is a confirmed ranking factor for Google. Faster sites tend to rank higher than slower ones.
  • Mobile Users: A large percentage of your audience is on mobile, often with slower data connections. Optimized images are crucial for providing a good mobile experience.

By following these three simple steps—choosing the right format, resizing to the correct dimensions, and compressing effectively—you can create a lightning-fast website that both your users and search engines will love.