Need help with image resizing (re: slow site)
-
I'm trying to figure out why I'm having speed issues with my site, and using google speed test to help me knock out some of the issues.
One of issues deals with image resizing. I have a responsive design and so even though on the home page the normal width is 580 of the blog area, the full post can go up to 1170. So I size all of my images to 1170 wide and let CSS resize them depending on the size of the browser. (The images on the most recent post are a little bigger than this because I was testing something.)
I was wondering what the best practice was in regard to what I'm trying to do.
Also feel free to check out my site and let me know of any other feedback / advice you have. Thanks !:)
-
Thanks a lot Keri,
These days with the online competition being so strong we should pay more attention to the website architecture, usability, visual impact, speed and technical problems. SEO it's so complex that you'll find yourself overwhelmed by the number of critical issues that needs to be addressed and fixed. Don't focus just on the content try to enhance every aspect of your page from to . Optimizing pictures takes only a few moments and you can use automated functions in Photoshop.
-
Another area to help with the images is to host them on a content distribution network.
Amazon is not the cheapest, but its the easiest for low volume.
A few stats:
I host about 4000 images on Amazon S3.
My bill is about 4 bucks a month.
You can put your images in a few areas (west coast vs east coast etc)....
This will help get your images closer to your audience, but it will not help you with the "last mile"
I had a customer uploading 7 MB images in Wisconsin using dial up....
can't help them...
I'm alos moving to Cloud Front, amazon Content Distribution Network...
Also, you use chrome to determine what's causing the delay.. many times, images are just part of a larger problem...
-
Hi Rick,
To the best of my knowledge, smushit compresses what it can while keeping the quality exactly the same. Saving for the web will lower the quality to "looking good on screen" from "good enough to print and hang on your wall". I also looked at the most recent post about Noah standing, and saw that the original size was 1900 pixels wide -- you certainly want to resize that to the 1170 wide before uploading it.
Being a photographer with a portfolio, Coltaire can give you a lot more details than I can, and help guide you with settings to use in Photoshop to get pictures that still look great on the web but aren't bigger than they need to be.
-
Thanks for the kind words. As I mentioned sometimes I like to do full width posts which are 1170 wide so if I use 800x600 the images won't show up correctly on full screen.
-
Rick, you have a wonderful son and the story of your website left me without words and I don't know if I can give you a good response at this moment... Try resizing them to 800x600, the size accommodates a lot of user screens / mobile traffic.
Have a wonderful day
-
Yes, i use catching. But like I said, saving it for 640 wouldn't work for me since I want image to show up bigger than that if the screen is 1170. I'm assuming the images wouldn't be able to be resized any bigger than 640 without looking stretched.
-
I never used that tool and I think it's ok to use it in some situations but you have a lot more control of the file saving for web in PS, lot more options and the quality loss is insignifiant.
Take a look at my Portfolio page. All of my files are 640x480px/72dpi/50-60quality/jpegs.
Also are you using any caching / minifing plugins?
-
I'm using smushit to make the file size smaller, but I need to be able to at least have 1170 for full width posts (like this one.) I don't think I need to use save for web if I'm using smush it do I?
Does having css resize the images cause a site to slow down a lot?
-
I think that your images are very big and are slowing down your page speed and affect your rankings. Why don't you try to scale and reduce the quality using the "Save for web" feature in PS, it's fast and you have the option to compare with the original file when saving? 800x600 , 640x480 px are large enough to be properly visualized, Think about the different screen resolutions your visitors have. I avoid using pictures larger than 100kb and my average picture quality when saved for web is 60%. Hope it helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why is my financial services site being flagged as gambling
Watchguard and Websense/Forecepoint are flagging my financial services site gambling...how can I prevent that from happening. https://fwag.com/
Web Design | | AdsposureDev0 -
Site appears then disappears from Google
Hi, This is my first post to the Moz community. I hope someone can help me, as I'm at my wits end 🙂 Since mid to late April, my client's home page keeps dropping from Google rankings on and off on the desktop in incognito and non-incognito browsing. It seems to always be visible on mobile phones though. One day it's on page 4, the next day it's not anywhere to be found (even though some of her other pages rank). The site is here: evgeniaribinik.com I have done some blog writing (just text) for this client over the last few months, and recently she asked for some SEO help. After looking at her website, I noticed that she had a plugin called WordPress SEO on her site. She wasn't using this for the blogs, however. I don't think she did much of anything with SEO, but she did say that for the last few years, she was always on page 3 or 4 of Google. In mid/late April, she saw that she wasn't ranking at all for the keyword "boudoir photography nyc" anymore, despite a few years of ranking for it. I told her Yoast would be good to use. However, after she installed it, the same issues keep happening. Right now, she has Yoast and WordPress SEO plugins installed (I'm not sure if this is causing an issue as well). But I really can't figure out why she keeps going on and off page 4. She also asked me to optimize older blogs that she wrote herself for SEO. When I look at them, they don't have meta descriptions, good titles or good keywords. I realize this is hurting her, but why would her site be fine for years and all of a sudden not now? Thank you in advance for any help you can give me! Jill
Web Design | | lobeng770 -
Image with 100% width/height - bad ranking?
Hi, we have some articles like this: http://www.schicksal.com/Orakel/Freitag-13 The main image has a width of 100% and a height of 100%. Today, I've discovered that GWT Instant Preview has some troubles with rendering the page. We have CSS rules to deliver the image with the right dimensions. If a bot like google is not sending any screen height / width we assume the screen size is 2560x1440. Does this harm the ranking of the page? (Content starts below the fold/image) What is a "default" screen size for google? How do they determine if something is "above the fold"? Any tips or ideas? Best wishes, Georg.
Web Design | | GeorgFranz0 -
ECWID Ecommerce Sites. No Custom URLS?
Is there any way possible to be able to name product urls in website that use ECWID for their ecommerce? They have long and "dirty" urls. For example this running boards site: http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/~/product/category=6593890&id=28043027 Isn't this hurting the overall SEO of the site? Especially product pages?
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
I can’t understand, please help?
Our old <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> built a lot of bad links (web 2.0, article ect) and in April of 2012 we received the dreaded Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to XXXXXXXX After 4 requests and disavowing all of the links he created we have finally received Reconsideration request for xxxx Manual spam action revoked The only problem is that this feels more of a penalty than when the received the detected links email? Everything across the board as dropped, I know we added more and more links to the disavow but everything has been going up with the quality we have been putting out until today when we received the manual action revoked. Has anyone experienced this, I feel like I wish we were still under the penalty as the rankings have dived.
Web Design | | BobAnderson0 -
Can white text over images hurt your SEO?
Hi everyone, I run a travel website that has about 30 pre-search city landing pages. In a redesign last year we added large "hero" images to the top of the page, and put our h1 headlines on top of them in white. The result is attractive, but I'm wondering if Google could be reading this page as "white text on white page", which is an obvious no-no, especially if it could seem that we're trying to hide text. Here's an example: http://www.eurocheapo.com/paris/ H1: Expert reviews of cheap hotels in Paris I should add that our SERPs for these city pages has dropped (for "Cheap hotels in X"), but it could obviously be related to other issues. Any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks! Tom
Web Design | | TomNYC0 -
How SEO friendly (or unfriendly) this site structure is
We have a client who wants a site structure like this http://thethomasoliverband.com/home - try to scroll down on the content and see how the url of the site changes. Would there be any problems on trying to SEO this type of structure?
Web Design | | paulct0 -
Negative Margins - Image Navigation
I created a good navigation but can't replicate it with html or css so I might have to stick to images. What would you recommend as a best practice for images in navigation? This site doesn't need to rank really high, it's mostly for a portfolio.
Web Design | | BeTheBoss0