Choosing the right compression method for images on your website

Here at Pumpkin Web Design, we are Preston’s leading web design and web marketing professionals. We work across Preston, and the North West, including Southport and Wigan, as well as Manchester, to provide valuable web design, SEO, and web marketing solutions to a range of clients. And this is our guide to everything you should know about image format and compression for website optimization.

What are the considerations for image optimization on your website?

Optimizing your website for improved performance online takes a number of different actions and approaches and involves looking at all aspects of your website, including the imagery. The images you use, and the way that these are stored and loaded, are crucial for helping to improve your SEO efforts. As a result, you will need to consider a range of factors, including:

Choosing the right format
Choosing the right compression method
Responsive imagery
Browser caching

The image format and compression are two of the most important factors for website optimization, but these are also the two factors that companies often struggle with the most.

Choosing the right format for images and visual content on your website

The format of the images you display on your website can make a big difference to the optimization process. This is because each different format is specifically deigned for a different purpose. These formats include:

JPEG: Best for still images, real-world images, and complex coloring;
PNG: Best for web images like logos and flat images;
GIF: Best for low-resolution images, animated graphics, small icons, and simple images — however, it is not advisable to go with GIF format but rather use mp4 or a webp instead;
TIFF: Best for high-quality and large-size print graphics;
WebP: A modern image format that offers superior compression while maintaining great quality.

By selecting the right format for your visual content you can reduce bandwidth consumption. This allows your website to load faster and provide a more effective user experience.

One new format to be aware of is AVIF. This has been designed specifically fore website performance and can even surpass WebP in quality. AVID provides the same positive qualities as the above image formats, and also offers an excellent compression ratio. In fact, AVIF provides almost 50% savings in size when compared to JPEG format. This is something all companies should be considering for the future.