| 🎯 What’s the goal? Optimize your website images. | ⚠️ Why does it matter? Fast loading time improves user experience and is a ranking factor. |
| 🏁 What’s the result? Images on your website are compressed and they are loading faster. | ⌚ When do you do this? Whenever you add new images. |
| ✅ Any special requirements? This process only applies to WordPress websites. | 🙋♂️Who should do it? The person responsible for managing your website. |
⏳ How long will this take? about 15 minutes
Let’s turbocharge the loading times of your images!
Environment setup:
- We recommend that you use Google Chrome browser to navigate the web,
- Administrator Access to your WordPress Blog.
Optimize your website by compressing your images using ShortPixel Plugin
ShortPixel Image Optimizer add-on that will speed up your website
by compressing your images
- First, go to your WordPress Admin panel
- If you are not logged in automatically, simply log-in as an Administrator:
- In the menu on the left side, select “Plugins”, then “Add new”.
- Type in “shortpixel” in the search box.
- In search results, you will find “ShortPixel Image Optimizer” by ShortPixel.
- Click on “Install Now”.
- Then on “Activate”.
- Now choose “ShortPixel” from the left side menu under “Settings”.
- If you use ShortPixel for the first time you should type in your email and click on “Request Key” to get your free API key (remember to check the box next to Terms of Service). If you already have one, proceed three steps forward.
- Check the box next to ToS and Privacy Policy and press “Sign Up”.
- And there is your API key. Simply copy it or write it down.
- Go back to ShortPixel, enter your API key and press “Validate”.
- You will be granted with a confirmation message.
- Now you have access to the ShortPixel setting. We recommend you to set the compression method to “Lossy” as it will allow you to keep decent image quality. You will find a description of each method below so if you decide to choose another, feel free to do it.
- Click on “Save and Go to Bulk Process”.
- Click on “Start Optimizing”. (ShortPixel free plan will allow you to optimize up to 100 images every month. If you need more you can always choose some paid plan on ShorPixel website).
- Wait for PlugIn to finish optimization.
- Then you will be presented with “Congratulations!”.
Now you should run again the SOP036: “Check your website loading time”
You should already see an improvement in your overall score.
With optimized images your website should load much faster!
