Shopify Image Optimization for your Online store

For Shopify Image Optimization, the goal is to have the best quality image for the smallest load time on your page. There are three key elements that drive this: Image File Size (JPG vs. PNG vs. WebP), Compression level, and Image height/width (Pixels). In reaching the right balance between these three elements, you can optimize your images thus affecting the page load time and the overall site performance. Unoptimized images can make up to 75% of the web page weight (load time) and image optimization will impact and reduce the web page weight, improve the user experience, and the site speed, reduce bounce rate, and improve conversion rates.

Improved Online store speed

A 2-second delay in page speed can increase your bounce rate by 103%, which affects the user experience and inevitably affects your SEO ranking. Whether you use JPG images or PNG Images, ensuring that the compression and image size are optimized is crucial when it comes to your products, home page, and image libraries. You can check your page load time on various free tools on the web (Pingdom). The time to the first byte is the response time from your server to deliver the first byte to your browser. Google uses this time for the first byte to Google rank a page by its algorithms - the Google crawl budget gets affected as the robots crawl your pages and can negatively affect how your pages are ranked and indexed if they are too slow.

Improved Browsing Experience

Humans detect delays as small as 1/10 second, anything longer than this does not feel instant. Anything longer than 1 second can interrupt the human thought process. The BBC has shown that for every second the page on your site loads, there is a 10% bounce rate impact and a lower time-on-page. High bounce rates are conversion killers, where your product images, landing pages, and page visits will significantly reduce the engagement with your target audience.

Improved search performance

If you have Adobe Photoshop or a capable image editor, you will have the tools to drive this optimization. Google image search can also help in your SEO when it comes to using Alt-Text within your store to label your product images, as well as associated images in Blogs or landing pages. Search Engines use keyword search, and associated keywords and check the experience that your website delivers. Usability testing and user experience design can assist in influencing the ranking of your site and can be boosted with link building. However, when it comes to search performance with your images, being optimized helps users and the search bots to understand your website content better, and will drive up your ranking. 32% of search queries are returned by images, and users look to images to recognize the item being looked at for a significant amount of time, as well as Google Shopping, uses a large real estate to show products. Doing your keyword research together with your image optimization will get the visibility you are looking for in SEO.

Google Search combines images and text into one query

62% of Gen Z and Millenials look to visual search results over any new technology to find what they are looking for, and Google has listened and delivered. This means that your images need greater attention when it comes to combining your keywords and as well as your images being optimized.

eCommerce images guidance and tools

70KB is the goal for online store stores to have your image size at - it can be quite difficult to reach this size when it comes to banners and larger images on your site.

Avada Image optimizer is one of the top apps in the Shopify App store, has over 1000+ reviews, and maintains over a 4.5star rating. With one click, the App will automatically go ahead and optimize your images. Automate Alt_tags on all images for all product pages, landing pages, and blog posts. High-quality image compression to boost your page loading speed, one-click optimized Google structured Meta Data, and Google Search Console integration for your metrics tracking.

TinyImg SEO and Image optimizer is another great optimizer for store owners, where it automatically loads the images in an optimized fashion to your online store. You can override the optimizer and bring back the original image at your discretion. Image resizing identifies and helps resolve technical SEO and speed issues, assists with broken link redirection, JSON LD, Live-support, and automated image optimization.

TinyPng is the most popular image optimization on the internet. The use of smart lossy compression techniques to deliver the best optimization (Webp) for your JPG/PNG files and visual imagery for your website. Animated images for your online store and Apps are also captured by this tool to be optimized. TinyPng API can resize images for thumbnails in an automatic function, speeding up the process as you populate your store with products.

Conclusion

You are being compelled to optimize your images on your store to get a better ranking, better user experience, and better site speed to improve engagement with your audience. How you respond is important when it comes to looking after your store, and how you approach your image optimization. Tools alone may not be enough to check on your Alt-text and Alt-tags, spot checking and ensuring they are correct can be a bit tedious. If you need assistance on this matter, feel free to check in with us at wish@thegenielab.com