Google’s heavy emphasis on speed and mobility now make it more important than ever that websites be optimized for fast load times. WordPress users can do multiple things to reduce load times, including optimizing images. The Imagify plugin represents one of the easiest ways to do so.
What Does Imagify do?
Imagify is a WordPress plugin that incorporates a number of standardized tools for reducing file size, thus making images faster to load. Users can specify image size, compression level, and other options as they see fit. They can also choose to have the plugin automatically optimize new images as these are added to the user’s media library.
Initially, existing images are optimized right from your WordPress media library after the plugin is installed. Imagify can be obtained through the Plugins page inside that WordPress Dashboard, or by directly visiting Imagify’s website and downloading it from there. Installation is straightforward and easy.
Once downloaded and installed, the user must go into the settings to set the default parameters. There is just a single page of settings, so this is not complicated. With settings chosen and saved, existing images can be optimized in just a few clicks.
Optimizing from the Library
The user can optimize all existing images by going to the media library in the Dashboard. There is a button in the upper left corner that, when clicked, will display all images in a list, just like posts are displayed on the Posts page. The user then chooses the images to modify and clicks the optimization button on the right side of the page.
Imagify does not delete original images. Rather, these are stored separately in another folder for later retrieval if necessary. The plugin offers both free and paid versions as well. The free version allows for up to 25 MB of optimized images per month.
Users can further enhance the benefits of Imagify by also installing the WP Rocket plugin. WP Rocket comes from the same company that developed Imagify. It further reduces page load times through four key features:
- Page caching
- Cache pre-loading
- On-demand image loading (images loaded only when viewed)
- Static file compression (reduces actual code).
Page load times are more important than ever before. For the best SEO performance, pages need to load quickly. Imagify and WP Rocket are two plugins more than capable of reducing load times for any WordPress site.