When it comes to images on your website they can create your look and feel…. but did you know that images can also really impact the speed of your website. How fast your website loads is a large factor in how high up Google will show your website in their searches.
Having images optimised well for your website is a great way to improve your website performance for Google but also for people visiting your website.
The first thing to do
Look at how your website is working.
- Does my website load slowly
- Do my images look blurry
How big should my images be?
When it comes to images you need to look at 3 things:
- Image dimension: what is the size of your image? Websites measure images in pixels, e.g. 500 x 500px
- Image resolution: the number of pixels packed into a set space like an inch (websites can use smaller resolution, print needs higher resolution)
- Image file size: measured in kilobytes (kb) and megabytes (MB). The smaller the image the faster it will load
The aim is to balance the image size with the quality of the image. The larger the image generally the better the quality, the same with the larger the resolution the better the image. However the larger the resolution the larger the file size.
Balance is key here.
You can use an image editor to resize or your photos.
Image Editors
Canva – https://canva.com
This has a free and paid version. You can do more with the paid version which I highly recommend and you can also find images to use on your website here.
You can create an image to the size you want. Upload your photos and then redownload to create your image.
Pixlr – www.pixlr.com
An image editing software that mirrors the basic functions of Photoshop. This is great if you want to crop images to different sizes and add text over images.
Stock Image Sources
Free Stock Image Resources
- Pexels – https://www.pexels.com/
- UnSplash – https://unsplash.com/
- Pixa Bay – https://pixabay.com/
Paid Stock Image Resources
- Creative Market – https://creativemarket.com/