Why optimize your website's images?

Image optimizer plugins help load the pages faster and can facilitate lower bandwidth being used to open and display your pages. Let's face it - you have worked hard on the content, thought carefully about the images you are using, but the page is loading so slowly that people are leaving before reading it. Don't let the images you have selected be the contributing problem.

Like all categories, image optimizing is no different - there are so many to choose from.

But I will just refer to two that may be of use.

• EWWW Image Optimizer

I have this set up on my website at present. It is easy to use and allows bulk optimizing of all your images a number of times. I will go back once a month and do the bulk job feature, and I am surprised that some of the images that were optimizied in the past will have some refinements done to them.

Here is the developer's blurb about it:

"The EWWW Image Optimizer is a WordPress plugin that will automatically optimize your images as you upload them to your blog. It can optimize the images that you have already uploaded, convert your images automatically to the file format that will produce the smallest image size (make sure you read the WARNINGS), and optionally apply lossy reductions for PNG and JPG images."

• NextGen Gallery Optimizer

This has been designed to work with the NextGen Gallery plugin, which is one of the most popular image gallery plugins in WordPress. Like EWWW, it optimizes each image so that page speed is enhanced and bandwidth lowered. I haven't tried this one, since I didn't like the NextGen Gallery plugin when I tried it. I use the HugeIT Portfolio plugin if I want to include a gallery of images in a blog or review page.

What are others you could try? I had a go at WP Smush.It but wasn't too thrilled with it as it seemed to complicate a simple task. CW Image Optimizer and Imsanity are two others that are rated highly by reviewers. I am sure that you have used different ones, so I welcome your feedback in the comments box below.

Lastly, I want to wrap things up with a few other plugins that may be useful to you both now and in the future.