Learning how to reduce image file size is essential in order to improve the performance of a website’s Core Web Vitals metrics. 

While adding eye-catching images is essential to improving a website’s visual appearance, sometimes, due to their high resolution, they increase the total page file size, which can affect the core web vitals performance and slow down the website’s PageSpeed performance. Now, you may wonder what to do in such cases.

Here, you need to reduce image file size.

Reducing the image size is one of the most effective web optimization tricks which almost every technical SEO expert tries to improve the core web vitals metrics and speed up the website. But how do you reduce the image file size?

Let’s figure out the tricks to reduce the image file size. We will discuss how RabbitLoader reduces image size within a few minutes and mention some tools that can help you. 

Why Do You Need To Reduce Image File Size?

Before going to further discussion, first, it’s essential to understand why you need to reduce the image file size. 

Image file size reduction is one of the easiest web optimization techniques. By reducing the image file size, you can significantly improve the website’s performance. Let’s see the importance of reducing the image file size which includes:

• Reduce The Total Page Size
• Improve The Page Loading Performance
• Improve The Core Web Vitals Performance
• Enhance The User Experience 

Let’s discuss these four benefits in detail. 

Reduce The Total Page Size

If you are involved in web development or a technical SEO team, you often use Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze a website’s PageSpeed performance. The “Avoid enormous network payloads” is one of the most common Google Pagespeed insights warnings that you may encounter due to a large Page size. 

Adding a lot of high-resolution images to the website is one of the reasons for your large Page size. By reducing the image file size, you can significantly reduce the page file size which can help you to mitigate the Google PageSpeed Insights warning “Avoid enormous network payloads”. 

Let’s understand how image file reduction can reduce the total page size. Assume you are running an e-commerce store that requires many eye-catching product images. Thus, due to adding a lot of high-resolution images, the total page file size has increased. If you have added a total of 10 images of 1 MB size each, then the total image file size would be 10 MB, increasing the total page file size.

Thus, when you are reducing each image size, it will reduce the image file which helps you to reduce the total page file size and mitigate the “Avoid enormous network payloads” warnings in Pagespeed Insights. 

Improve The Page Loading Performance

Improving page loading time is one technical SEO checklist tip that can help improve a website’s search engine rankings and increase organic traffic and page views. Reducing the image file size can also significantly improve the website’s page loading performance. 

When a user opens a website, the browser needs to load all resource files before rendering the content. While a large image takes a lot of time to load, a small image reduces the loading time. Hence, to improve the page loading time, you need to reduce the image file size. 

Improve The Core Web Vitals Performance

Google developed a set of performance metrics to determine a website’s PageSpeed performance. Now, core web vitals metrics are considered in the Google ranking algorithm along with other ranking factors like backlinks, website security and others.  

Core Web Vitals metrics measure a website’s initial loading time, page interactivity, and visual stability. Thus, reducing page file size can significantly improve the core web vitals performance, especially the First Contentful Paint (FCP) and the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). 

Enhance The User Experience

Every user expects a website that is working perfectly. Thus, by reducing the image file size, you can enhance the user experience. A fast-loading website with high-resolution images can engage the user which leads to reducing the bounce rate. 

As a website owner, your first goal should be to achieve a desirable conversion rate, which depends on several factors, such as a website’s PageSpeed performance, page content, product quality and more.

As you can see above, reducing image files can improve the PageSpeed performance of a website, it will help you to achieve your desirable conversion rate. 

How To Reduce Image File Size?

While image file reduction can be possible in several ways, the most effective two ways are:

• Image Compression
• Convert the Images into the Next-Gen Format. 

Here, we will focus on these two effective ways of reducing the image file. 

What is Compression?

Image compression is a technical method of making an image smaller while maintaining good quality. In technical terms, image compression is a process of encoding the file information in a few bits compared to the original file. By compressing an image, you can ensure a website’s fast-loading performance and improve the core web vitals metrics.

The Type Of Compression

A large-sized image file can be compressed in two ways: lossy compression and lossless compression.

• What is Lossy compression?

Lossy compression is an image compression technique that reduces the size of an image file by discarding less important information, such as visual details, image dimension and more. 

The main disadvantage of lossy compression is that this compression method reduces the image file size along with its quality. 

• What is Lossless compression? 

On the other hand, lossless compression is a compression method of reducing the image file size without discarding any kind of information. Thus, it reduces the image file size without compromising its visual quality.  

What Is The Next-Gen Format?

During auditing, you often notice one of the common Google PSI warnings: “Serve images in next-gen format.” But what is the next-gen format?

The next-gen image format is an advanced image format that serves high-quality images that consume less space in the total page file, resulting in fast page loading. 

The Type Of Next-Gen Format

Next-gen formats are two types: WebP and AVIF.

• What is the WebP format?

In 2010, Google developed an advanced image file format named Webp that allows lossy and lossless compression. If you compress JPEG images, it reduces the image file size by 25 to 34 percent. 

• What is the AVIF format?

AVIF (also known as AV1 image file format) was released by the Alliance for Open Media in 2019. It provides high-quality images by compressing them losslessly. When you compress images into AVIF format, you can reduce the total page size by up to 50%. 

Reduce Image File Size By RabbitLoader

At this point, you already know how to reduce an image file size. Now, you may be looking for an image compressor for compressing images. Before investing money in any image optimization plugin, have you thought about how challenging it can be to resize images one by one. 

Just imagine, you have tens of thousands of product images in an e-commerce store. Hence converting those product images one by one can be daunting. 

Here, you need the help of RabbitLoader which has an in-built bulk image optimization feature. Let’s see how RabbitLoader helps you to reduce the image size,

When you install RabbitLoader on your website, It will automatically convert all your images into next-gen format to achieve the best compression level. The actual size of the below Manali-540×740.jpg images is 317 kb

However, after installing RabbitLoader for the PageSpeed optimization purpose, you can see the size difference. This resized image is only 21.6 kb

Thus, when you are using RabbitLoader, it will reduce the image file size, improving the core web vitals performance as well as the PageSpeed performance.  

Conclusion 

Reducing image file size can help improve core web vitals performance and boost page loading time. As you can see, there are two effective ways you can reduce the image file size: compressing the images or converting them into next-gen such as Webp and AVIF format. 

Using an image conversation that doesn’t have a bulk image optimization feature, can be challenging for you if the website has a lot of images. In such cases, you must install RabbitLoader. 

Not only for large-size websites but even if you have a small website, you should try RabbitLoader to save valuable time. 

FAQ:  The Helpful Tools for Reducing Image File Size?

You can use helpful tools such as TinyPNG, Convertio, and others. However, if you are looking for a bulk image resizer, you need to install RabbitLoader to resize the image and maintain the image quality.