Images can make up a massive proportion of your page weight. And that means that optimizing them can make a great deal of difference in your site speed.
Given the importance of page speed for both search rankings and user experience, this is an area worth getting right.
On WordPress sites, image optimization plugins can make quick and consistent work of optimizing image size for page speed.
In this column, you’ll find 10 WordPress image optimization plugins you may want to try out. First, here’s why.
Google Wants You To Optimize Images & Speed
If this weren’t so important, Google wouldn’t be constantly telling website owners and SEO professionals to give the speed and performance of our sites more love.
If page speed wasn’t a great, big deal, Google wouldn’t have made it a ranking factor.
So there’s that.
Google has even created quantifiable metrics called Core Web Vitals to assist in measuring site speed and page experience.
Recently, the search engine also refreshed Google PageSpeed Insights to provide us with greater insight into how our sites perform in terms of speed and what actions we may take to improve it.
If you’ve been working with Google PageSpeed Insights, you may have noticed that often, the most impactful insights the tool gives you relate to the optimization of images.
If you were to implement just one of multiple insights the PSI tool gives you, image optimizations are likely the most effective.
Streamline the process with one of these tools.
1. Imagify
The Imagify WordPress plugin is a powerful tool that converts any WordPress website into an image-optimized one, which could help to decrease load time and improve the site’s overall performance.
Some of the features of Imagify include:
- Support for WebP, PDF, GIF, JPG, and PNG.
- Automatic resizing and optimization performed on upload.
- Different levels of compression (Normal, Aggressive, and Ultra).
- Backup of original images.
- Bulk optimization of the entire media library.
- Available in the free (limited) and paid version.
Imagify and WP Rocket (a speed and cache plugin from the same company) together create a highly effective performance & speed combo for any WordPress site.
2. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
ShortPixel is another popular WordPress image optimization plugin with more than 300,000 users.
Some of its key features are:
- Three different levels of compression (lossless, lossy, and glossy).
- Automatic optimization of new images.
- Supports WebP, PNG, JPG, GIF, AVID, and PDF.
- Works in the background.
- It stores the original image files.
- Available in a free version (to optimize up to 100 images) and paid.
3. EWWW Image Optimizer
EWWW Image Optimizer is a lightweight plugin with almost a million active users.
The standout features of EWWW Image Optimizer include:
- Support of the most popular image formats, such as JPG, PNG, and PDF.
- Lazy loading and conversion into the next-gen formats like WebP.
- Adding missing dimensions to images (one of the things the PSI tool assesses).
- Bulk image optimization.
- Preserves original images.
- There is no limit on the size of image files to be compressed.
- Available in the free and premium versions.
4. reSmush.it
If you are looking for a free WordPress image optimization plugin, then reSmush.it may be a good option for you.
Some of the features you need to know include:
- Support for the most popular image formats like JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, and TIF.
- Bulk image optimization.
- Image optimization on upload.
- Works only with images below 5 MB.
- Creates a copy of the original image.
- Has a slider that allows you to precisely adjust the compression level.
5. Smush Image Compression and Optimization
Smush is one of the most popular image compression plugins for WordPress and has more than one million active installs.
It comes with a nice-looking interface and its most important features include:
- Lazy loading of images.
- Nice presentation of the results of image compression (i.e. how much space you have saved thanks to the plugin).
- Different levels of optimization (lossy and lossless).
- Lazy loading.
- Available in the free (limited to the images under 1 MB) and pro versions.
6. Optimole
Optimole is an image optimization plugin that helps you to get rid of all those bulky images so your website or blog loads faster.
It compresses JPEG and PNG files while preserving their quality, so your visitors enjoy quicker load times and a better viewing experience.
Its key features include:
- User-friendly simple interface.
- 4 compression levels (auto, high, medium, low).
- Support for Retina and WebP.
- Lazy loading.
- Uses a free CDN.
- Available in free and paid versions.
7. Compress JPEG & PNG Images by TinyPNG
As the name suggests, the TinyPNG plugin is made to optimize the two most popular image formats, i.e. JPEG and PNG.
The main features include:
- Bulk optimization of all images in the library.
- Automatic optimization on image upload.
- The possibility to set a desired width or height of images uploaded.
- No image size file limits.
- Works for multiple sites with one API key.
8. WP Compress
In addition to offering the most popular image optimization features, WP Compress also comes with a bunch of agency features including client reporting, remote configuration, monthly client quotas, and more.
Some of the standard WP Compress features include:
- Bulk optimization in one click.
- Lazy loading.
- Conversion into the next-gen formats, such as WebP.
- Lighting-fast hybrid CDN.
- Available in free and paid versions.
9. Optimus
Optimus is a WordPress image optimization plugin that offers smart optimization of images and claims to reduce image files by up to 70%.
The standout features of Optimus include:
- Bulk optimization of all existing images.
- Automatic image optimization on upload.
- Support for Retina images.
- Works with WooCommerce.
- Available in free and premium versions.
10. Imsanity
Imsanity is a minimal and lightweight WordPress image optimization plugin that offers a simple interface and basic optimization features, such as:
- Automatic optimization of images on upload.
- The possibility to choose the JPG image quality.
- The possibility to either remove or keep original images.
- Bulk image optimization.
Final Thoughts & Tips on Image Optimization for WordPress
The days when we had to manually compress every image we uploaded on our site are gone (lucky for us).
WordPress users, thanks to the popularity and wide use of that platform, can choose from a variety of image compression and optimization plugins that can do the hard work for them.
However, one thing to keep in mind is not to use more than one image optimization plugin. Using multiple image plugins at the same time can lead to undesired consequences and issues.
In most cases, the optimal setup for a fast WordPress website is to use a WordPress caching plugin together with an image optimization plugin; for example, WP Rocket and Imagify combined.
More resources:
- How & Why to Use CDN Services for WordPress
- The 109 Best SEO Tools That Are Totally Free
- WordPress SEO Guide: Everything You Need to Know
Featured image: Shutterstock/Andrey Burmakin
