Images can enhance the user experience for your website, promote your brands, and provide it with add-on assets that could be used in promotion. Although, heavy and large images can intensify your page load speeds, negatively affecting your SEO and leading to frustration for your users. Businesses can diminish these issues, and one can possess all the benefits that their website images offer. This all could be made possible through the WordPress image optimizer plugin.

The image optimizer wordpress plugin reduces the image size and modifies how your site deals with image loading. This entire process can be complex and time consuming if carried out manually. Still, most WordPress users take advantage of these wordpress image optimizer plugins to streamline their hard work and data.

Let’s Learn What is Image Optimization?

Image optimization is the process where businesses modify the image to meet certain requirements of your website. These requirements include size, resolution, dimension, and appropriate format. In the end, images are to be showcased not to slow down your website and spoil the user’s experience.

Although image compression and image optimization are not similar, image compression is a part of the image optimization process where the image size is modified, keeping the image quality, color, and many factors in mind.

Why Does WordPress Image Optimization Matter? 

Apart from the website loading speed, WordPress image optimizer plugins matter to the website in several ways. Search engines like Google, don’t rank the websites based only on loading speed and the content. This requirement of the rank pages makes it much more significant for businesses to focus on using wordpress image optimizer tools to boost their search engine ranking. Read more on must have WordPress plugins for your website.

Online image optimizer compresses the image size to almost half of the big picture. Furthermore, one should also benefit from the image alt text or image tags to add phrases and keywords to the images. However, all of this detail and attention may go for nothing, as it majorly impacts whether they find your website in the first place or not.

1. Smush

Smush is one of the well-known and trusted WordPress image optimizer plugins. It provides users with lossless compression, i.e., the quality of the image file is not hindered while reducing the image size up to 5 MB, individually or in a group. Furthermore, this WordPress image optimizer also considers other measures to boost page performance, including auto-resizing and lazy loading.

Smush is an effective plugin for newcomers. Thus if you install this image optimizer WordPress plugin on the existing site, all you require is to turn the mode on and go to the plugin setting page. Then it will modify all the images on your website. All the new images you will upload will automatically be optimized until the plugin is installed and in operation.

The free version of Smush and all other paid versions like Smush pro and others are amazing options preferred by WordPress website development services. It provides them with lossless compression; thus, the quality of the image file remains intact even after image compression. Smush Pro costs around $6 per month, and it helps reduce the file sizes more than the free version further; it also removes the file size limits. At the same time, this WordPress image optimizer plugin-free version restricts you up to image size under 1MB.

2. Optimus

For businesses with bandwidth as their concern, Optimus optimizes the uploaded wordpress images to up to 70%. This WordPress image optimizer plugin functions by sending image files to the Optimus server and returning new and smaller versions to use on your website. The image optimization of this WordPress image optimizer plugin is lossless and won’t bother the quality of the images even after compression. It also carries out the actual compression of the images off to your server.

Optimus is a hands-off image optimizer WordPress plugin that automatically processes the images, and further, it uploads them to your WordPress website. Resulting in enhancing your website page performance without any additional effort on your part. Although you also can stop the atomization if you want to.

In addition to the Optimus free version, it has two paid versions as well that is Optimus HQ costs $29 per year, and Optimus HQ Pro costs $149 per year. The paid version of this WordPress image optimizer plugin allows HTTPS connection to the Optimus compression server and provides access to the developer API and conversion for WebP images. Optimus HQ Pro is one of the best choices for users looking forward to managing multiple websites as it provides users with the license for all customer websites.

3. EWWW Image Optimizer

The EWWW image optimizer WordPress plugin majorly operates according to the earlier recommendations. That is, it automatically optimizes the images and uploads them to your website. With these best free image optimizer plugins WordPress, you have an option to optimize the previously uploaded JPG images individually or in a group. EWWW, a WordPress image optimizer also supports lossless compression.

While EWW comes with extra benefits that help it stand out, this image optimizer WordPress plugin enables users to upload unlimited file sizes, so one should not bother about the large and uncompressed images. In addition to that, the premium API version can handle GIF, PNG, and WebP files; therefore, it is a great gift for websites that include images of all types. At last EWWW WordPress, image optimizer plugin has a support team that addresses every query and question, including those from free and premium users.

4. ShortPixel Image Optimizer

The freemium WordPress image optimizer plugin ShortPixel provides users with distinct image compression solutions, lossy and lossless. Lossy compression intends to cause some data loss, leading to smaller files but lower image quality. If you are looking forward to choosing from these methods, you should opt for ShortPixel.

One of the best parts of this WordPress image optimizer plugin is that it restores the original copy of the image, making it easy and effective to restore the needed. It also comes with small benefits, including RGB to CMYK conversion and image resizing. This best image optimizer plugin, WordPress, also allows compression for PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, and PDF files without any size limits.

ShortPixel is one of the WordPress image optimizer plugins that allows users to optimize 100 images per month for no cost and charges extra for additional images. For example, it asks users to pay $3.99 per month for 7,000 images per month. $8.33 per month for 16000 images, and it goes on.

5. Imagify

Like any other options provided, Imagify is also one of the WordPress image optimizer plugins that compress the newly uploaded images and the available images in your WordPress media folder. Everything with Imagify is handled automatically, saving your time and boosting the workflow simultaneously.

One of the recognized features of Imagify is that it has three optimization levels, which can be toggled in the plugin setting. These three optimization options are lossy compression, lossless compression, and strongly lossy compression applied for the smallest image files but with the lowest image quality. It gives users much more control over the file’s degree of quality and size.

Imagify is an online image optimizer compatible with WooCommerce, NextGen Gallery, and other well-known plugins, making it an ideal choice for websites that incorporate many images required to be compressed. In addition to that, Imagify also has a backup option, as here, you can restore the original size and quality of the image at any time and begin it all over again.

Conclusion

So wrapping the list of the best WordPress image optimizer plugins. We hope this article was useful to you and helped you find one of the best image optimization plugins for your business that meets your budget and requirements.

Although if you are still not sure, then it is recommended to go with WP compress or ShortPixel. Both of these plugins can be equipped with all the required features and functionalities that can help you optimize your website images in the best way possible. Read more on best WordPress lazy load plugins to make your website faster.

There are various free and paid versions of the WordPress, as mentioned earlier, image optimizer plugin. So choose your online image optimizer to reduce your website’s loading speed, boost your website performance and enhance the user’s experience.