If you’ve ever clicked on a site and watched a blank screen while the images struggled to load, you know the frustration it causes. Slow-loading images can drive visitors away. Beyond creating a bad user experience, they can also hurt your SEO, traffic and sales.

The good news? There are practical steps you can take to make your website’s images load almost instantly.

In this post, I will go over some technical aspects and will also try to note when platforms typically do something for you, so you likely don’t need to worry about it.

Let’s work through it step by step.

Why Photo Load Speed Matters

Image created with RightBlogger image generator

First off, why should you prioritize faster photo loading? It’s simple: speed = satisfaction. A slow website sends nearly half your audience elsewhere.

Worse, Google ranks slow sites lower since they’re considered less user-friendly.

Your images are a big piece of the puzzle here. They’re often the heaviest components of a webpage, and if they aren’t optimized, they can be a drag on performance. Whether you’re a small business owner or a beginner blogger, improving image load times can be a game-changer for site speed.

It’s so easy, as you’ll see in this guide, to make images load fast that there isn’t much reason not to make your site load fast for everyone.

Tips on How to Make Photos Load Faster on a Website

Keep in mind you won’t need to do all of these likely. However, you’ll want to understand and review best practices so you know what your site is and isn’t doing.

1. Resize and Compress Your Images

It’s simple, big image files are big problems. If you’re uploading massive, high-resolution photos straight from your phone to your website, you’re probably killing your load time.

First, a little disclaimer, if you are using a well-made WordPress theme, resizing likely isn’t an issue since they’ll be properly resized within their display when they are uploaded to WordPress. So I only recommend manually resizing images if you know it’s a problem, mainly because it’s a time sink.

Let’s fix large images:

  • Resize: Only upload photos in the dimensions they’ll be displayed. For example, if your blog only requires 800px wide images, resize them before uploading. Tools like Adobe Photoshop or Canva work well, but even free online options like CrushImage will do the trick. As I mentioned previously a well made CMS or WordPress theme will do this for you.
  • Compress: This reduces file size without noticeably affecting quality. For lossy compression (where some quality is sacrificed), use JPEG. For lossless compression (where quality is preserved), use PNG—though it comes at a cost of slightly larger file sizes. We’ll dive deeper into when to use certain filetypes next.

After working on thousands of WordPress sites, I’ve found that 100 KB is a good threshold to aim for when it comes to image compression. Every individual image should be below that, if possible (the smaller, the better). This is important for your hero and featured images, as these will usually be your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) element. And LCP is one of the three Core Web Vitals metrics. Beyond image optimization plugins, I’ve found the free Squoosh tool from Google super handy for further fine-tuning things.

Brian Lee Jackson, Perfmatters

Want to avoid doing everything manually? A plugin like ShortPixel can handle resizing and compression automatically. Additionally if you use a CDN like Cloudflare their paid plan offers image compression on the fly as they are served.

2. Choose the Right Image Format

Choosing the right file format plays a huge role in load times. Here’s a quick breakdown:

  • JPEG: Best for photos and complex images with lots of colors. It delivers excellent quality for smaller file sizes. This includes images of places, things, typical photograph.
  • PNG: Perfect for images needing transparency or sharp, clean lines. Just keep in mind that file sizes are larger compared to JPEG. This would be things like a company logo, or a graphic.
  • WebP: A modern format that offers fantastic compression without compromising quality. It’s supported by almost all browsers and is often your fastest option. Many CDNs will automatically convert images to WebP for you.

Unsure? You likely want to lean towards using JPEG, as almost all images in your articles should be JPEG.

3. Enable Lazy Loading for Images

Lazy loading is basically a fancy way of saying, “only load what the user can see right now.” Why load images at the bottom of the page if your visitors haven’t scrolled there yet? It’s especially handy for pages with lots of media.

Lazing loading an image

Most modern content management systems, like WordPress, have built-in lazy load options. If not, you can use plugins such as WP-Rocket or Perfmatters to add this feature.

4. Use Responsive Images

Have you ever visited a website on your phone, only to see images struggle to load? Or images that appear low resolution? Responsive images ensure your users always get an appropriately sized version of your photo for their device, be it a 15-inch laptop or an iPhone.

srcset example code

Here’s how:

  • Use the srcset attribute in your image tags to provide multiple image sizes. The browser will pick the one that fits best.
  • Always include width and height attributes for smoother rendering and to avoid layout shifts.

Most blogging platforms (like WordPress) will manage this for you and automatically generate a series of images that respond effectively based on the device.

5. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Let’s say your website is hosted on a server in New York, but a visitor in Tokyo wants to access your site. The distance can result in delays due to the limitation of the speed of light.

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) solves this by storing copies of your images on multiple servers worldwide, serving them from the nearest location.

Using a CDN provider like Cloudflare (free, our personal favorite), ShortPixel, or Bunny.net can significantly improve image load speed, especially for users in different geographies.

Here is a quick breakdown of how oyu’d setup each

  • Cloudflare: Cloudflare sits in front of your website at the DNS level, so it can feel a little more technical to set up, but I recommend it. They add security and site speed to your site. Best of all, since they sit between your website and the outside world, their CDN capabilities happen without changing your and caching happens automatically.
  • ShortPixel: Shortpixel offers a dedicated WordPress plugin you can use with a paid subscription to compress, resize, and serve images from a CDN.
  • Bunny.net: Like ShortPixel Bunny.net also offers a WordPress plugin to compress and serve images from a CDN.

Keep in mind if you use a service like Squarespace or Webflow they handle things like a CDN for your assets.

6. Cache Images for Returning Visitors

Browser caching will speed up things dramatically. When a visitor comes to your site, their browser saves the images so they don’t need to be reloaded on their next visit.

Most caching plugins for WordPress, like WP Super Cache, Perfmatters, and WP-Rocket, have simple options to enable image caching with just a few clicks (or by default.)

7. Avoid Hotlinking

Hotlinking happens when someone embeds your image on their site, but it’s still hosted on your server. This not only eats up your bandwidth but can also slow down your site. A quick way to avoid this is by disabling hotlinking in your server settings or via plugins.

We personally use Cloudflare and don’t pay by bandwidth, so it’s not our biggest concern. However, it works both ways; you’ll want to ensure that all images on your site are hosted by you to maintain control over all aspects, as we discussed in this post.

8. Test and Monitor Performance

Even after applying these changes, it’s important to keep an eye on your site’s performance. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights help you identify and fix any remaining bottlenecks. There are also a ton of other improvements you can make to site speed using information from PageSpeed Insights. They’ll often point out images that need adjustment—for example, oversized photos or missing width and height attributes.

9. Don’t Rely on Defaults

Using a drag-and-drop website builder? Be careful. Many of them automatically upload images without resizing or compressing them. Always check if your CMS allows custom settings for image optimization or reach out to their support to make sure optimization are enabled.

Final Thoughts

Making photos load faster on your website doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right tools and a bit of strategy, you can create a lightning-fast browsing experience that keeps visitors engaged and helps your SEO.

Ready to take the next step? Start by compressing those oversized images and explore tools like CDNs, caching plugins and don’t forget lazy loading.

Looking to optimize for traffic even further? Check out this post on 9 Free AI SEO Tools to Get More Traffic. It’s packed with practical tips to supercharge your site.

Give it a try, and let us know how your load times improve. Remember, every second counts!