Slow loading websites are boring and hard to use. Many internet users' by-pass slow loading websites no matter how useful the websites content may be. As the competition for online audience continues to increase, image optimization will be very essential in ensuring that a business online identity is maintained. Image optimization refers to the process of formatting images, aimed at reducing time taken to load the images. Compared to other files formats like HTML, text and programming scripts, images in a websites occupy huge memory space. As a result, a website loading speed is increased for websites with non-optimized images.
Despite the above disadvantage of images in a website, images in a website are indispensable. Images help to makes website look good and appealing as well as giving extra information. The following are some image optimization tips that when applied can reduce a website loading speed and at the same time retain all images in a website.
File format used to present an image will always determine the size of a particular image in terms of MBs (memory space)changing an image to a totally different format will greatly reduce your images size hence reducing your website loading speed. The three most common and recommended image formats are GIF, JPEG and PNG.GIF format is there re-commendable for use when dealing with image files with few colors.GIF format is mostly used In logos and other images with few colours.JPEG on the other hand is great on images with a lot of colors and information such as photographs these enhances reduction of file size while maintaining the original image contrast. Finally PNG is applicable for high quality images with high level of clarity. The PNG format enhances image clarity without straining the image memory size.
Many website developers end up scaling down images just because HTML does not enable image resizing. Scaling down an image increases its capacity in pixels hence increasing its size. Instead it's recommended to use image editing application such as Photoshop and other tools. These works well in maintaining required image sizes without affecting the image quality or its loading speed.
Java script and J-query scripting languages provides a functionality that enables developers to pre-load images. What a web developer needs to do is to write a script in the head tag for preloading images in the background as the rest of a website page is loading. The script enables the browser to cache all the images and create a temporary storage in the client computer. Ones an image is required, the image loads automatically.
Just as code re-use in software development is important, image reuse in web development is also equally essential. Same images should be re-used throughout the website. These helps in the following; first, image reuse helps to reduce website development time, also image reuse reduce visitors download time since same images are downloaded and finally image reuse empowers consistency in a website hence boosting its graphic user interface .
As the world moves to embrace globalizations, search engine optimization and image optimization will be very essential in empowering websites online presence.
Slow loading websites are boring and hard to use. Many internet users' by-pass slow loading websites no matter how useful the websites content may be. As the competition for online audience continues to increase, image optimization will be very essential in ensuring that a business online identity is maintained. Image optimization refers to the process of formatting images, aimed at reducing time taken to load the images. Compared to other files formats like HTML, text and programming scripts, images in a websites occupy huge memory space. As a result, a website loading speed is increased for websites with non-optimized images.
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