Image compressors are an essential tool for any blog and website in general, especially if it is an eCommerce site.

It is a procedure that consists of eliminating all the unnecessary data in order to reduce the weight of the image files, with the aim of improving the functioning of the website or application.

But it is also a determining factor from the point of view of SEO On Page web positioning in general, among other advantages that we see below.

Advantages of image compressors

Visual resources are essential to reinforce web usability and to ensure that the user has a pleasant experience… And they account for about 50% of the total weight of a page.

This means that mismanaging them will inevitably lead to major web loading problems. This can lead to an increase in the bounce rate among other obstacles.

In general, these are the main benefits of image compressors:

Strengthen SEO. Google takes the quality of images into account when rating websites, and penalizes especially those that are too heavy. If the server detects problems in the loading speed… You will probably have problems appearing among the first search results.
More storage space. Heavy images take up valuable space that can be very useful for other content. If you can compress them, you will have more space and you will be able to share files between different channels without speed problems. This brings us to the next advantage.
Improve loading speed (Web Performance Optimization o WPO). Heavy images are one of the most common causes of web speed problems. In addition to angering Google, this will cause significant inconvenience to the user. Nothing that can’t be avoided by improving image management to speed up loading.
Adaptability to different devices. Responsive design is essential nowadays, as users access the Internet through different devices: mobiles, tablets, computers… Adjusting the website to the screen size of the device and compressing the images will ensure that they can be viewed correctly from any browser.

How to compress images

As you will have seen, it is very important to take care of the images on the web, but…

How to optimise them?

To begin with, you need to know the format of the images. To do this, look at their extent or properties. It will normally be one of the following:

JPG: It is the most widely used and recognised. It has the disadvantage that, by reducing the image size, it loses quality.
PNG: This format allows you to add transparencies to the image and does not lose quality in compression, so you can use it for virtually all web elements, mainly vector illustrations.
GIF: It is not very common because it is only used to create short animations but they are very heavy.
TIFF: It is intended for high quality, high detail photographs, so it is a high volume format.

PNG is generally the most useful formatfor most web pages. Once you know the size of your images, you only have to define the resolution you are interested in, according to the space available for them.

The important thing, in short, is to minimise their weight without any visible loss of quality for the user.

All of this may sound a bit complicated, but luckily there are a number of tools that allow you to compress images quickly and easily. Let’s see which ones are the most used…

Best tools for optimising images on the web

The Internet offers solutions for almost everything. And a task as important as image compression was not going to be an exception.

The following are the most popular image compressors available today:

Compressor.io

Although it only supports files up to 10 MB in size, it is one of the most functional tools for increasing speed without compromising image quality. In fact, not only does it reduce its weight by around 80% to 90%, but it leaves the quality virtually untouched.

Compressgjpeg.com and compresspng.com

Like the previous one, they allow weight to be minimised without affecting quality. But in this case, they also allow you to convert files to other formats. For example, from PNG to JPG.

Image Optimizer

It works similarly to the previous ones, although it has a peculiarity: it is a very simple online platform that allows you to compress all types of image files with a single click. It also has an application that you can have installed to avoid continually uploading and downloading images.

These are just a few of the many, many tools available for compressing images. Free, paid, online, with application… But we cannot close this article without mentioning other greats such as Caesium, Riot (only available for Windows), Gimp (a free alternative to Photoshop, and simpler) or Google’s Bonus Guetzli, developed by Google itself to compress JPEG images.

At Doowebs we are dedicated to creating and designing websites, so if you need advice on how to manage your images, contact us and we will help you to optimise your online project.

Ask for a non-binding quote!