Let’s start with the “Why”
Images should be downsized for your website for two primary reasons — you want a user-friendly website that loads quickly for a better user experience, and for optimum SEO benefit. Nothing is worse than landing a website and having to wait for the images to load. Truth is, people just won’t wait. They’ll be off to your competitor’s website in a heartbeat!
✨ Smaller file size images will load faster
✨ Search engines reward faster websites
✨ Smaller images use less data
✨ Larger images can bog down your entire website
Understanding Image File Size
Images taken on a modern smart phone are far too large for web use and need to be downsized. Images from a digital camera are generally even larger.
✨File size is measured in KB (Kilobyte) and MB (Megabyte)
✨1 MB = 1,024 KB
✨Avoid uploading images to your website that are larger than 250 KB. Sometimes this rule will be broken, but this is a general guideline to go by.
Understanding Image Dimension
The dimension of your image is similar to the size of a photo frame, but images use pixels, instead of inches or centimeters.
E.g., 1200 x 800px (the first number always shows the width).
What dimensions should I use on my website?
✨Full screen images, such as your hero or a parallax image: 2500px wide, to fit modern larger monitors
✨All other images: 1200px on the long side.
How to resize images
There are many free apps for both smart phones and computers, as well as websites that will help you downsize your images for free.
Here are just a few:
✨GIMP (freeware that you can download to your computer)
