How to handle images (lazy loading, compressing, caching...) to impact page load and thus SEO?
-
Hi all,
I am looking for a conclusive answer on how to handle images on Wordpress websites. Most of the time we encounter the same problems regarding images.
There are several options to make sure that images don't increase page load too much:
- Page caching and compressing: standard
- Lazy loading: helps decrease page load time, but Google might not crawl the images so not good for SEO. See this article on Googlebot scrolling.
- Correct image format (for example WebP): tried it several times and doesn't help much to decrease page load time.
What is best practice? Are there standards or preferred options for the image dimensions and quality (max height, width, number of pixels, rectangular or square) before you upload it, also regarding responsiveness? Is it better to use .jpg, .png or WebP?
To sum up, what should you do by default to handle images on websites so you can still have a good page speed even with loads of images?
Thanks for your answers!
-
Image Format
I believe the preferred performance is WebP. But I usually try to use png over jpg.Compressing Images
I think what might work best in your case is some sort of plugin like WP Smush. If you have a ton of images I'd invest in a tool or plugin that dynamically compresses images as they are uploaded to your site.I like WP Smush because it also strips out the metadata associated with images along with compressing them.
If you have a ton of images it could be an attractive solution for you that you can scale.
Outside of another plugin, you could try some sort of cloud-based solution to dynamically compress images before you upload them.
I've tested an open-source image compression tool called Caesium in the past. This tool reduced some of my images by almost 40%. It performed better than the plugins I was using but I'm not so sure it would be a scaleable solution for you.
Out of curiosity, how bad are your load times? Are you currently running into site speed problems or are you trying to make incremental improvements?
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
-
Null Alt Image Tags vs Missing Alt Image Tags
Hi, Would it be better for organic search to have a null alt image tag programatically added to thousands of images without alt image tags or just leave them as is. The option of adding tailored alt image tags to thousands of images is not possible. Is having sitewide alt image tags really important to organic search overall or what? Right now, probably 10% of the sites images have alt img tags. A huge number of those images are pages that aren Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Mass Product Page Upload - SEO Issue?
Hi We will be adding a lot of products to our site, in a mass referencing exercise, not all in one go, but 10,000 split into a few loads. This product content won't be duplicate, but the quality of the information may be sparse and not very high. My question is, whether adding a bulk of these pages will reduce the pverall domain authority on our site? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
301 Externally Linked, But Non-Producing Pages, To Productive Pages Needing Links?
I'm working on a site that has some non-productive pages without much of an upside potential, but that are linked-to externally. The site also has some productive pages, light in external links, in a somewhat related topic. What do you think of 301ing the non-productive pages with links to the productive pages without links in order to give them more external link love? Would it make much of a difference? Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Enormous 7 page drop after switching servers and adding load balancers. Thoughts?
Hello Everyone, I'm a longtime Moz user but I had to switch accounts after switching jobs. I was hoping someone might be able to give me some insight on whats going on if possible. Our startup had first page position for our most valuable keyword: "Crowdfunding real estate" for about 6 or 7 months. Once we launched and switched to a production server behind load balancers, we dropped almost overnight to 7th page and we've been there for about a month. We don't have many links yet and some of the ones we DO have are kind of spammy (no idea where they came from and in process of trying to get them removed) but we thought it'd be strange to see that massive drop. We are even pages below a competitor who has NO links and basically zero content on the page. We don't have any notifications in WMT about a manual penalty or anything. I'd really, really appreciate any advice and If anyone has any ideas, the page is at: PatchofLand.com Thanks, Jason
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PatchofLand0 -
If Penguin 2.0 targets specific pages and keywords, should I spend less SEO effort on them since will they be harder to optimize? Penalty repair is only starting at end of year.
I’m working with a company that got hit by Penguin 2.0. They’re going to switch to white-hat only for a few months and review analytics before considering repairing the penalty. In the meantime, would it make sense to focus less SEO effort (on-site optimization, link building, etc.) on any pages or keywords that were penalized or hit hardest? Or are those the pages we should work on the most? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
Will Creating a Keyword specific Page to replace the Category Section page cause any harm to my website?
I am running a word press install for my blog and recently had 3 of my main keywords set as categories. I recently decided to create a static page for the keywords instead of having the category page showing all the posts within the category, and took it off the navigation bar. I read about setting the categories to use NO index so the search engines can shine more importance on the new pages i created to really replace where the category was showing. Can this have a negative effect on my rankings? http://junkcarsforcashnjcompany.com junk car removal nj is showing the category section, So i placed the no index on it. Will the search engines refresh the data and replace it with the new page I created?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | junkcars0 -
404 Error on Blog Pages that Look Like Loading Fine
There was recently a huge increase in 404 errors on Yandex Webmasters corresponding with a drop in rankings. Most of the pages seem to be from my blog (which was updated around the same time). When I click on the links from Yandex the page looks like it is loading normal, expect that it has the following message from the Facebook plugin I am using for commenting Any ideas about what the problem is or how to fix it? Critical Errors That Must Be Fixed | Bad Response Code: | URL returned a bad HTTP response code. | Open Graph Warnings That Should Be Fixed | Inferred Property: | The 'og:url' property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags. |
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter
| Inferred Property: | The 'og:title' property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags. |
| Small og:image: | All the images referenced by og:image should be at least 200px in both dimensions. Please check all the images with tag og:image in the given url and ensure that it meets the recommended specification. |0 -
Any idea why I can't add a Panoramio image link to my Google Places page?
Hey guys & gals! Last week, I watched one of the Pro Webinars on here related to Google Places. Since then, I have begun to help one of my friends with his GP page to get my feet wet. One of the tips from the webinar was to geotag images in Panoramio to use for your images on the Places page. However, when I try to do this, I just get an error that says they can't upload it at this time. I tried searching online for answers, but the G support pages that I have found where someone asks the same question, there is no resolution. Can anyone help? PS - I would prefer not to post publicly the business name, URL, etc. So, if that info is needed, I can PM. Thanks a lot!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | strong11