Top 5 Secret Weapons of a Good Image Optimizer

Why you might ask, do you need to optimize your website images?

Image optimization is one of the core website SEO principles, as well as a means of saving storage and majorly increasing your website loading speed.

High-resolution images look great but they also make your website “heavier” and so the loading time increases. The customers, though, don’t wanna be kept waiting. At least no longer than 2-3 seconds.

Naturally, every problem has its solution. There are lots of image compressors and optimizers here to help you decrease image size without loss of quality. You just have to select the best one for your website.

So, let’s discuss the main qualities a potential image compression tool should have.

Here’s the list of 5 secrets “weapons” of a good image optimizer:

1. Maintains high visual quality

We want to optimize the images in order to rank higher on Google and minimize website load time. But that does not mean we’re ready to sacrifice the quality of the images on the website.

Images are typically the first thing that catches the eye of the visitor of your website. I don’t even mean galleries, where the main aim of the whole website is to showcase beautiful high-quality images.

Business websites also highly depend on high-resolution images.

The thing is when a visitor opens a webpage, no matter how wonderful, relevant, and expertly written the content is, half-blurred, low-quality visuals negatively impact the user’s opinion. Low-quality images are a sign of being unprofessional, and users are gonna try to avoid it.

So, a good image optimizer should be able to reduce image size with minimal or no visible loss of quality.

2. Supports different file types

Supporting different file types is crucial for any image optimizer.

Website owners decide the main image formats they want to use on their website based on certain criteria. They might favor .jpg, .png, gif, etc. in different scenarios and situations.

For example, gif images should never be used with large product images. While .jpg is preferable for e-commerce, .png often acts as a placeholder for both .jpg and gif formats, when those are unavailable or unsuitable.

Here you can discover the differences between those three main image file formats.

Now, of course, you can search for a .jpg compressor and then later, when you need to optimize, say, a .png, look for another optimization tool.

But why? Isn’t it way better to find a single tool designed for carrying out all those compressions, one that supports different image type optimizations?

That’s why it’s important for a good image optimizer to support compressions of various file types.

3. Automatic optimization

21st century, as we all know, is about the automation of, well, basically everything.

Automatic optimization is no exception; it is a super important feature.

Automatic image optimization refers to the option of scheduling periodic automatic compression. For example, you can set it to optimize images on a weekly, daily or hourly basis, or, which is better, every time a new image is uploaded to your media library.

This saves lots of time and effort you’d otherwise spend manually optimizing every image on your website. Automation also makes sure the images will be optimized since the process no longer depends on you remembering to click the button every time.

4. Simplicity of use

There’s a saying insisting you should always choose the hard way to make sure you’ll have fewer competitors on the way. But seriously, who does that?

Trying to avoiding complications is what humans are basically known for. Especially when we’re talking about using a compression tool, not developing your whole business marketing strategy.

There’s no need to invest lots of energy and time in just optimizing your images. This is why the simplicity of use of the image compressor is another crucial quality to consider.

By saying simplicity of use we mean:

• The option to optimize images in a click.
• The average user’s ability to find the feature he or she is looking for in a few clicks.
• That each feature has a reasonable name/button and corresponding guidelines regarding its use.

5. PDF optimization

Websites aren’t just about images, are they? PDF is another popular format you might need to embed into your website.

For example, guides, user information sheets, additional information pieces, etc. are typically attached to the website as a compact .pdf file, rather than a bunch of text on a webpage.

Optimizing your .pdf files is just as important as optimizing your images because heavy .pdf files also can ruin your website SEO and definitely add to its loading time. We don’t want that, do we?

Optimization of .pdf files is just another important “skill” to look for in your potential image optimizer. You don’t wanna have to use a separate PDF compressor, do you?