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What is Image Optimization?
Whether you are running a blog or a website, if you wish to captivate and engage your users, the basic means of doing so is with some high-quality images. However, as we all know, high-res images, are also high in size, which ultimately can slow down your website. Furthermore, a slow website will also be an annoyance to your users.
Also read: 15 Best WordPress Lazy Load Plugins For Images
So while you were trying to increase traffic by using images, incorrect execution will increase your site’s bounce rate. So what’s the cure? How can you include quality images to your website without slowing it down? The answer is simple; you will have to optimize the images and reduce its size.
How to Do Image Optimization?
If you are a WordPress user, then you can optimize the images on your website by using WordPress Image Optimizer plugins. In fact, there is an abundance collection of plugins for WordPress which are curated for the specific purpose. Now many of these plugins are no doubt good, but plenty of them have bad codes and can compromise your site’s performance.
However, we have tried out all the popular and some unique image optimization plugins to bring you a short list of some of the best in its class. Here is the list:
List of Best WordPress Image Optimizer Plugins
All the entries in this list has been tested for quality and will be a great help to improve your website’s performance. Without compromising picture quality, the plugin can work to dramatically reduce the file sizes, so that it doesn’t become a load to your web server.
#1. Optimole
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Optimole is one of the top image processing plugin using which you can optimize the images for your WordPress website. The plugin is extremely useful and has thousands of active installs as of now. The plugin will make your images weigh 80% less than its original weight. Optimole is fully cloud-based and is capable of optimizing your images automatically. It will automatically select the right image size for your viewer’s web browser. Optimole uses a lazy loading technique to view your pictures.
Optimole makes sure that your website loads faster. This will bring about an improvement in the performance of your website. All you have to do is sign up to Optimole and add it to your site. The plugin is compatible with page builders. It will also allow you to add different types of watermarks to your images.
#2. EWWW Image Optimizer
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Next up we have EWWW Image Optimizer. This WordPress image optimizer plugin is super easy to use and will help you to optimize your images in a jiffy. All you need to do is just upload the images, and the plugin will automatically optimize them on the fly. Other features for this image processing plugin would be the bulk optimization option. It allows you to efficiently compress the images which were previously uploaded to your site. Also, the plugin can help you optimize images that are outside your WordPress media library as well.
You also get the handy option to back up your original images and store them for 30 days. And the biggest highlight for the plugin would be that there is no speed limit and the ability to compress images regardless of how big its size.
#3. Imagify Image Optimizer
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Imagify Image Optimizer WordPress plugin is one of the most advanced image processing plugin you can find with a free price tag. The plugin functions automatically, compressing the optimizing all your image which includes your thumbnails, retina images, as well as WP Retina x2. The plugin is also compatible with NextGen Gallery and WooCommerce.
The plugin offers three different level of compressions.
- The “Normal mode” allows for lossless compression so that your images reduces in size but not in quality.
- Then comes with “Aggressive Mode” which allows for lossy compression where a little quality is lost, but the image file size reduces significantly.
- And lastly, there is the “Ultra Mode” where the image will noticeably reduce in quality, but you will get the most file size compression.
On top of this, there is a backup functionality present. In case you don’t like how the image compression turned out, you can easily back up to the original state. All these features are made available to you for free, but only up to 25MB of images. If your site handles more images, then you will have to roll into one of their paid plans.
#4. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
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Starting off our list, we have ShortPixel Image Optimizer plugin for WordPress websites. The plugin sports an easy to use solution for optimizing images as well as PDF files on your website. JPG, PNG and even GIFs can be converted into WebP files with ease.
Do note that this is a freemium image optimization plugin. That is to say; there is a pro version of the plugin which you can purchase to gain access to more advanced features. Now, the features we went over here are all included in the free offering. However, the free version does come with a restriction which limits monthly image optimization to only 100.
#5. Compress JPEG & PNG Images
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The name says it all. Compress JPEG & PNG images is a WordPress image optimizer plugin which you can use to – compress JPEG and PNG files. The plugin is integrated with some of the accessible image optimization services such as TinyJPG and TinyPNG. So with the plugin installed, you practically have the liberty to automatically compress images as you upload them to the media library instead of having to do it manually from one of the services mentioned above.
Notable features of the plugin would be the ability to preserve copyright metadata, creation data, GPS location, bulk optimization for existing image files. Support for animated PNG, and much more.
#6. reSmush.it
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The re.Smush.it image optimization WordPress plugin uses the reSmush.it API to help you optimize your images for free. Thanks to the use of advanced algorithms, the size of each image can be reduced by over 50 to 70%. The plugin accepts JPG, PNG, and GIF files.
Other impressive features of the plugin include the option for bulk optimization. And best of all, each image gets automatically optimized as soon as you upload it to your site. But you can exclude specific images from conversion too, in case you need them full size. However, there are some limitations to the plugins as well. For one, it only accepts images that are less than 5MB for optimization. Again, there aren’t many compression levels.
#7. Image Optimizer by WebDorado
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Image Optimizer by WebDorado is a WP Image optimizer plugin available in a free as well as paid models. Luckily, you will get the necessary features with the free plan except PDF compression, Extreme compression, and scheduled optimization, which are saved for the premium plans. Also, there is a limitation of the number of images you can optimize each month. With a free plan, the monthly cap is set at 1000 images each month.
Now coming to its features and functionalities, it offers a boatload of options. Starting from bulk optimization to a detailed optimization report, the plugin has it all. The plugin can also handle all the optimizations automatically at the moment of image upload, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.
As far as image types are concerned, this image compression WordPress plugin can help you optimize JPEG, PNG and GIF files. Also, as mentioned, if you go for the premium versions, you will even get the option to optimize PDF files. You can also configure the optimization process based on three modes. There is a conservative mode, a balanced mode, and an extreme mode which corresponds to how much quality you can willing to compromise for reducing file size.
#8. Optimus
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Optimus is a freemium Image Optimizer WordPress plugin. This means that the plugin is available in both the free and premium options. The free version packs in all the necessary features to help you reduce your image size and reduce the load on your servers.
Once installed, it will automatically start to reduce the size of uploaded media files in your WordPress Media Library. As soon as you upload an image to your Media library, the plugin works behind the scene and uploads the image the Optimus server where it gets optimized. Its algorithm allows image size reduction of up to 70% depending on the format, all the while maintaining image quality.
Now in case, you want to optimize the images present in your website before the installation of this best compression plugin, even that can be handled using the Bulk Optimization functionality present online. Also, for privacy purposes, all the images that you are uploaded to the Optimus server are instantly deleted after completing the optimization process.
#9. SEO Friendly Images Pro
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Quickly loading image files which comes with a descriptive ALT and title tag is loved by search engines. It can even help you improve your SEO score and bring you more traffic to your website. With SEO Friendly Images Pro WordPress plugin you get necessary features for optimizing your images as well as the associated alt and title attributes to help you rank better on search engines.
Now coming to its list of features, it is worth mentioning that the plugin is powered by unveil.js. Furthermore, you get lazy loading functionalities, option to set up a scheme for your alt and title tags, and automatic SEO links.
#10. WP Smush Pro
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Another premium WordPress image optimizer plugin on our list is WP Smush Pro. This is probably one of the most well known and popular image optimization tools for WordPress users. It is super fast, straightforward to use, and packed with excellent features to help you not only optimize images, and improve overall website performance.
Coming to its laundry list of features, we have the option to bulk optimize any number of images in any directory. In fact, the plugin can handle images as large as 32MB, and effortless compress them into manageable proportions. You also get the option to scale your images at the time of upload as well as convert any PNG file into lossy JPEGs.
#11. SEO Image Optimizer for WordPress and WooCommerce
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WooCommerce, if you are not aware, is a WordPress plugin that can help you set up an online store. Now any decent e-store will need to sport high-quality images of their different products. And this is the utility of SEO Image Optimizer for WordPress and WooCommerce plugin.
Even though the name is annoyingly large, it can help you compress and optimize images on your site into surprisingly small sizes – without compromising quality. It also supports auto customization as well as optimization of the Title and ALT tags for the images.
Any Other WordPress Image Optimization Plugin?
So these were our top picks for the best image optimization WordPress plugins. There are many ways to optimize a WordPress website and optimizing the images is one of them. Once you install and start using the plugins, you will notice that they can dramatically reduce the image sizes so that memory and storage don’t become an issue.
Try Other Options to Optimize a WordPress Website
Apart from optimizing the images, it is also recommended to perform other optimization methods to achieve optimal performance of your WordPress website.
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