What Are the Fundamentals of Image Optimization?

You should be aware of certain aspects when optimizing images for your blog. There are many areas that you must understand in order to optimize images, including file type, image compression, image sizes, and dimensions.

Type of File

If you are patient enough to look, you'll find that images on the web are often saved in either PNG/JPEG format or GIFs. You can find so many hilarious GIFs while browsing the web or chatting with friends.

Although you might want to save images in one of these formats:

• I suggest JPEG for photographs that feature human or nonliving designs.
• PNG is suitable for graphics, screenshots, images with transparent backgrounds,
• And GIFs can only be used when animations are needed.

You may be wondering why there are so many formats. JPEG is mainly used for saving photos. But, the problem with this format is that it compresses an image into a smaller size which can affect the image's quality.

PNG on the other side is used to save text/graphics. However, it does not lose the original image quality and can create large files.

Image Dimensions

This is a common problem for bloggers. It means you didn't properly resize and optimize your images. This can be corrected by using either an image editor like Photoshop, Lightroom, or Pixlr to resize your images before you upload them.

For simple Resizing for free try BeFunky. It's very quick and easy to use and you can choose what size you want and check how many Kbs you will be using. I aim for between 35 - 75 Kbs for the small pictures to the right of my text ( Approx 300 x 300 pxls but experiment). These load very quickly.

You can explore web publishing platforms that allow the creation of multiple versions of your full resolution image at different sizes.

• Blog post image size (1200 x 630 pixels)
• Header image size (banner size 1048 x 250 pixels)
• Featured image size (landscape 1200 x 900 pixels)
• Featured image size (portrait 900 x 1200 pixels)
• WordPress background image size (1920 x 1080 pixels)
• Logo image size (200 x 100 pixels)

WordPress creates three or more copies of your uploaded images that you can use in your blog posts. I recommend Imsanity for WordPress. It is a plugin that can help you resize, replace or repurpose the stock photo image you are using in your posts.