Tinify’s easy recipe for SEO basics and image compression

It’s probably safe to assume that any website owner reading this knows about SEO, which is about improving your website’s ranking on search engines to increase traffic. That should be doable, right? But on second thought, how exactly does that work?

In this blog post, we’ll help you with this by going through SEO basics. Think of your SEO as a three-course meal and the search engine as a fancy Michelin inspector: to get that star, you must excel equally on the three dishes. For your website, these are: on-page (content), off-page (authority), and technical. Let’s don that chef’s hat!

By the end of this post, you’ll know…

  • Exactly what to focus on to make your content more SEO-friendly.
  • Some actions you can take outside of your website to improve its popularity.
  • Basic technical improvements with little tech expertise – like compressing your images.
  • Further links on SEO if you want to learn more about this topic.

Time to prepare the food!

How to improve your on-page SEO?

On-page SEO is all about content. It includes tasks such as optimizing text, title and header tags, internal links, and URLs. 

  • URLs: When creating URLs, make sure to make them short, and include one or two keywords that represent your page best.
  • Title and header tags: The title and heading tags of your page (e.g. H1, H2, and H3 tags) should also include keywords. By following these tips, you can improve the chances of your content appearing in featured snippets on Google.
  • In addition, sub-sections bring structure and help users and search bots to easily read your content. Backlinko suggests website owners write question-based tags. After conducting a study with over 5 million Google search results, they found that question-based title tags have an above-average click-through-rate (so, more visitors).
  • Internal links: This refers to linking to pages within your own website. Make sure to incorporate relevant links so visitors can explore other pages.
  • Meta description: This is the description that shows up in search results below the page title. Make it brief, engaging, and informative. Semrush recommends keeping it under 120 characters, so mobile and desktop users can skim through the full summary of the page.
On-page SEO basics: A short meta description.

Lastly, quality text! After all, this is the backbone of your website. For pages that you’d like to optimize for SEO purposes, the recommended length is 1500 words. Besides, remember to include your keyword in the first 100 words of your first paragraph. 

Of course, not all pages need to be visible in search engines, so these tips apply to formats such as blog posts and product landing pages. If you’re a WordPress user, you can find free plugins (we use RankMath) that guide you through all these steps.

For ideas on what to write, conduct keyword research. Mailchimp compiled a basic guide on how to do this, but overall, track your analytics to understand what words visitors use to find you. Tools like Google Search Console can give you a good overview of keywords that are performing well on your website. 

In addition, if you’re new to SEO, you can target long-tail keywords – i.e. searches with three or more words – which are usually more specific but have lower competition. For instance, an example of a short tail would be “hotel”, and a long one “Amsterdam hotel twin room”. When looking at keywords, try to find what is the intent of your users behind those words. It’s all about getting into their shoes and figuring out what they are looking for.

How to improve your off-page SEO?

Off-page optimization is about all the actions taken outside of your website to improve its search engine rankings. This includes social media activity, directory listings and most important, backlinks. The latter refers to a link from one website to another one. When this happens, it’s like giving that website a vote of confidence, telling search engines that the content on the linked website is relevant and valuable.

All in all, the cornerstone of off-page SEO is authority building. Ahrefs refers to it as the “strength” of a particular domain to rank high in search engines. 

It is worth noting that SEO experts can’t reach an agreement on how important this is for SEO. While some point it out as playing a big role, others say that there is no proof that search engines like Google evaluate authority. Search bots are like black boxes, which means no one can ever say for certain how they work. Nonetheless, website popularity is a good indicator of how well your website is performing. Bluehost put it this way: a website referring back to yours is like word-of-mouth marketing.

If you want to check how your domain rates in authority, you can use MOZ’s domain authority checker, which tells you how likely your website is to appear in search engine result pages. In addition, Semrush also provides a backlink analytics tool, which also gives you an authority score.

Off-page SEO basics: Check how your domain authority.

Once you analyze your score, you can start by:

  • Building high-quality backlinks: Focus on building high-quality backlinks from reputable websites relevant to your industry or niche. You can use techniques like writing guest posts, asking websites that mention your brand to link to your website, as well as finding broken links related to your content and suggesting your website as a replacement. This will help you rank your website higher.
  • Focusing on social media: Social media platforms can be a great way to build brand awareness, increase engagement, and drive traffic to your website. Make sure to optimize your social media profiles and share high-quality content regularly.
  • Improving online reputation: Your online reputation can affect your SEO rankings. Encourage happy customers to leave positive reviews and address negative feedback right away.
  • Optimizing local SEO: If your business has a physical location, optimizing your website for local SEO can help improve your rankings in local search results. Claim your business on Google My Business, and make sure your NAP (name, address, phone number) is consistent across all directories.

How to improve your technical SEO?

The third and last thing to improve is your website’s technical SEO, which involves optimizing technical aspects to help search engines crawl, index, and rank it more effectively. In other words, the idea behind this is to make it easier for search bots to find your web pages, understand what they are about, and finally return the page that matches what users are searching for. 

One key element of technical SEO is website speed. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your website doesn’t take longer than 3 seconds to load as 40% of users will quit it. You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify areas of improvement and optimize your website for faster loading. In this stage, you might find that your images are too heavy – this is one of the top reasons for a slow website. Fortunately, you can quickly fix this!

Firstly, you can check how much loading time you can save by compressing your images through Tinify’s Web Page Image Analyzer. Some experts recommend that your images shouldn’t be more than 1MB, but Shopify advises users to keep image files under 70KB. 

Technical SEO basics: Check your website speed.

To achieve this, you can compress your images on Tinify’s website, or use our Developer API. Our lossy compression algorithm is designed to automatically deliver the best optimization results without compromising image quality (this means that the changes are imperceptible to the human eye). Compressed images take up less space and require less bandwidth to load. This will significantly help improve your website’s loading speed, and in turn, increase your website’s ranking on search engines. 

Besides this, here are other tips you can implement that don’t require extra technical expertise:

  • Create an SEO-friendly site structure: Make sure your website has a clear and organized structure, with easy-to-use navigation and URLs that are simple to read and understand. All pages should be easy to find in a matter of a few clicks – this will also help search bots understand your content.
  • Create a Google Search account and submit your sitemap: Submitting your sitemap is like giving Google a map of all the pages on your website. This helps Google find and show your pages in search results faster and more accurately. It also helps you see how your website is doing in search results and any problems to fix. For a more detailed explanation, read Semrush’s article on this.
  • Make your website mobile-friendly: Mobile devices now account for the majority of internet traffic, so it’s crucial to have a mobile-friendly website. Use responsive design or dynamic serving to ensure your website is optimized for mobile devices. Most website templates – e.g. WordPress, Squarespace – are already prepared for this. Nonetheless, evaluate your website’s mobile version with Google PageSpeed Insights in case improvements are needed. 
  • Fix technical errors: Identify and fix technical errors like broken links, 404 pages, and duplicate content. Use tools like Google Search Console to monitor your website and identify errors.

And that’s it – you can now take your apron off… Well, not quite! Remember that SEO is a long-term strategy, which means that you won’t be able to see any results immediately. According to a survey conducted by Arhfes, it typically takes between 3 to 6 months to see any improvements, while Marketing Lab suggests up to one year, especially for new websites as they have less content and backlinks than older ones. It’s a slow-burning process, but eventually, you’ll see an increase in website traffic. Lastly, you need to consistently go back to these steps so you keep ranking higher. 


TL;DR:

SEO basics can be divided into three:

On-page SEO (content):
  • Optimize URLs, titles, and headers with relevant keywords.
  • Use internal links to relevant pages.
  • Write a concise and informative meta description.
  • Create quality content that’s at least 1500 words long and includes keywords.
  • Conduct keyword research to understand what words visitors use to find you.
  • Use tools like Google Search Console and RankMath to guide you.
Off-page SEO (website authority):
  • Building high-quality backlinks from reputable websites relevant to your industry is crucial for ranking higher.
  • Social media can help build brand awareness, increase engagement, and drive traffic to your website.
  • Online reputation affects SEO rankings, so encourage positive reviews and address negative feedback.
  • Optimizing your website for local SEO can improve your rankings in local search results.
  • Tools like Moz and Semrush can help you analyze your website’s authority score.
Technical SEO:
  • Make sure your website loads within 3 seconds and compress heavy images to reduce loading time.
  • Create an SEO-friendly site structure with clear navigation and simple URLs.
  • Submit your sitemap to Google Search for faster and more accurate indexing.
  • Make your website mobile-friendly with a responsive design or dynamic serving.
  • Fix technical errors such as broken links, 404 pages, and duplicate content.

Finally, remember that it might take up to a year to see any results but a consistent effort to improve your website’s SEO will eventually lead to more traffic.

Looking for an image size reducer? Learn 5 techniques to better optimize large images beyond compression

“Make PNG smaller”, “how to compress JPEG to 50KB”, and “image size reducer” are a few of the things users type to find a way to compress large images into small ones. However, there is more that users can do than compress their images. While this is key – after all, that’s what Tinify is about! – there are other ways to make sure your images are the smallest size possible.

Large images can slow down your website, which may lead to a negative user experience and even lower search engine rankings. While this may sound obvious, it is common for new bloggers and inexperienced website users to overlook this. The excitement of seeing our little corner of the internet come to life can make us blind to more technical points – like whether our website is taking two seconds more to load than what is recommended. 

So, if your website visitors are first presented with a loading symbol before accessing your content, keep on reading!

Let’s go over some tips and techniques for optimizing large image files to ensure that your website stays fast – including using an image size reducer:

  1. Use the right image format
  2. Use the right image dimensions
  3. Compress your images with Tinify’s image size reducer tool
  4. Convert your images to WebP
  5. Use lazy loading and image caching

“Panda promise” that this will work!

Use the right image format

The first step in optimizing large image files is to choose the right image format. The reason for this is that image formats make a big difference in terms of file size. For example, PNGs end up being larger in size than JPEGs. That’s why JPEG, the most common image format, is the best choice for photographs, while PNG should be used for web graphics, logos, charts, and illustrations, particularly because it handles transparent backgrounds.

Knowing these differences will help you save your images in the right format, which will ensure your website isn’t populated with image formats that are larger than necessary.

Use the right image dimensions: resize and crop images

Another factor that can affect the size of an image file is its dimensions. It’s usual for new website owners to overlook the size of their images, but with this, they might end up uploading too many large images.

Since most websites only display images at a specific size, find out the recommended sizes and resize your images according to them. For example, if you want to upload a header image to WordPress, your image doesn’t need to be larger than 1048×250 pixels. In the end, resizing decreases the file size even further, which will make your website load faster. 

You can resize and crop your images with built-in software on your computer. For Windows users, you can check this link for instructions on how to resize images using Paint. For macOS users, you can use Preview – learn how to here.

If you’re a technical user, you can sign-up for Tinify’s Developer API, which gives you the chance to resize your images within your code, as well as smart cropping options.

Use an image size reducer: Compress your images with Tinify

Another effective way to optimize large image files is to compress them. Image size reducer tools compress the file size of an image by removing unnecessary data and reducing the number of colors. Compression tools are quite effective at reducing the size of large images without any noticeable loss in quality.

According to the e-commerce platform Shopify, a good rule of thumb is to keep your image file size below 70KB. This can be difficult to achieve with large images, and that is why they recommend using image size reducer tools, like Tinify.

You can use Tinify as your go-to image size reducer tool.

While some compression tools give you the chance to choose the level of compression, Tinify’s algorithm is designed to optimize images to their fullest extent at the click of a button. So, when you upload an image to Tinify, we will analyze each image, and based on this, the best optimization level will automatically be determined. There’s so much website owners have to worry about that it’s important for us that they can save time in the process of optimizing their pictures.

If you have a website, you can use Tinify’s analyzer to discover how much loading time you’ll save by compressing your images.

To compress them, you can drop them directly to Tinify’s homepage and upload the compressed image back to your website. Free users have a limit of 5MB per image, but if you find yourself stuck with larger images, you can take advantage of our Web Pro subscription. For WordPress users and developers, there’s an easier way to compress images. All you have to do is to create a Tinify API account, and all your images will automatically be optimized for free up to 500 compressions. 

Convert your images to WebP

Okay, perhaps now your website loads faster than ever – no loading symbol to exhaust your visitors! However, when you add your website to Google’s web analyzer, you realize that more can be done to optimize your images… Like converting them to next-gen image formats. Unlike JPEG and PNG, next-gen image formats were created for web use, which means they’re smaller in size to load faster. 

One example of this is WebP, created by Google. It is similar to JPEG and PNG, but it can produce smaller image file sizes while maintaining the same quality. In this way, you can replace your PNG and JPEG images with WebP to cut even more on loading time. The downside is that this image format only works in modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, etc), so you need to have a fallback option for Internet Explorer and older browsers. 

You can convert your images to WebP online or with Photoshop, and compress them after with Tinify. If you’re a technical user, you can take a look at Tinify’s API to automatically convert your PNG, JPEG, and WebP images. We hope to make this feature available to browser users later this year.

Use lazy loading and image caching

Once you’ve optimized your images, you can also implement a few things on your website to make them load in the best possible way. 

One trick is to implement lazy loading, a technique that delays the loading of images until they are needed. In other words, you can use lazy loading to defer the loading of images until the user scrolls down to the part of the page where they’re displayed. This can improve the initial loading time of the page and reduce the amount of data that needs to be transferred over the network. 

To implement lazy loading, you can use a lazy loading plugin or JavaScript libraries, such as LazyLoad, Lozad.js, and unveil.js. You can also use HTML attributes: the loading attribute can be used to specify the loading behavior of images. The attribute can be set to lazy which will only load the image when it comes into view. This is a native browser feature and is supported by most modern browsers. All in all, these tools allow you to specify which images should be lazy-loaded and when they should be loaded.

Lastly, another technique you can implement is image caching. It’s a technique that involves storing copies of images in a cache which stores the image temporarily in a proxy server or a browser cache. Image caching can be useful for reducing the amount of data that needs to be transferred over the network. It can also help to reduce the load on servers, as it reduces the number of requests that need to be handled. 

For example, a web browser will typically cache images that are downloaded as part of a webpage, so that they don’t need to be re-downloaded each time the user visits the page – this is one of the reasons why cookies exist. You can use a caching plugin for this, or a CDN (Content Delivery Network) so your images are served to users from a server that is geographically closer to them.

If you’re curious about this, Tinify’s CDN might be for you! Tinify’s CDN caches optimized versions of images, which makes it an “all in one” tool for reducing, compressing and caching your images.

TL;DR

If you’re stuck with large images that slow down your website, remember that using only an image size reducer might not be enough to solve this issue. Here are 5 ways to reduce and optimize large image files:

  • Use the right image format: JPEG for photographs and PNG for web graphics, logos, charts, and illustrations.
  • Use the right image dimensions: resize and crop images to the appropriate size by checking the appropriate dimensions for your website.
  • Compress your images with Tinify: Large images can be compressed by a lot with our image size reducer tool without any noticeable loss in quality.
  • Convert your images to WebP, a modern image format that can provide smaller file sizes than JPEG or PNG.
  • Use lazy loading to only load images when they are needed, and image caching to store images so they are served faster to your users.

Take advantage of next-gen images to make your website faster in 2023

One of the most read posts in Tinify’s blog is about WebP, a next-gen image format that offers better compression for a faster website. WebP – together with HEIF, AVIF, and JPEG 2000 – is slowly replacing the usual JPEG and PNG image formats. But while they aren’t new, only now more and more users are jumping on the bandwagon and serving images in next-gen formats. If you’re behind on this, don’t worry – the beginning of this new year is perfect timing to take your visuals to the next level.

In this blog post, we talk about:

  1. What are next-gen images and examples;
  2. Which next-gen image format is the best for your website;
  3. What are the advantages of using next-gen images;
  4. How to convert your images to next-gen formats using Tinify.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

What are next-gen images?

Next-gen (short for next generation) images are newer file types that were designed to render faster on the web. Unlike traditional image formats such as JPEG and PNG, they offer better compression, meaning that they can be smaller in file size while still maintaining high quality. 

These new formats include WebP, AVIF (AV1 Image File Format), HEIF (High-Efficiency Image File Format), and JPEG 2000 (JP2). Here is a summary of the key differences between these formats:

  • Compression algorithm: JPEG 2000 uses a wavelet-based compression algorithm, while WebP uses the VP8 and VP9 video coding formats, HEIF uses the HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) standard, and AVIF uses the AV1 video coding format. Wavelet-based compression can offer better compression ratios and image quality than the block-based compression algorithms used by VP8, VP9, and AV1, but it can also be more computationally intensive to decode.
  • File size and compression ratio: AVIF has the potential to achieve the best compression ratios and smallest file sizes of these formats due to its use of the AV1 codec. HEIF may also have an advantage in terms of compression ratio and file size due to its use of the HEVC codec. JPEG 2000 and WebP may have slightly larger file sizes, but can still offer good compression and image quality.
  • Features: All of these formats support lossless and lossy compression, as well as transparency. WebP also supports animation and color profiles, while HEIF supports 16-bit color depth and the ability to store multiple images in a single file. AVIF and JPEG 2000 do not currently support animation or color profiles.

Which next-gen image format is the best for your website?

In terms of compression ratio and file size, AVIF probably yields the best results. JPEG 2000 might also offer good compression ratios, but its wavelet-based compression algorithm can be more computationally intensive to decode, which may affect its performance in some applications.

In terms of browser support, WebP is currently the most widely supported of these formats. It is supported by all modern browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple Safari. AVIF and HEIF are also supported by many modern browsers, although their support is not as widespread as WebP. JPEG 2000 is less widely supported than the other formats, with limited support in some modern browsers.

Overall, all these formats offer good compression and image quality, but WebP has become the go-to next-gen image format due to its wider browser support. According to Google, WebP can reduce file sizes by up to a third compared to JPEG and PNG images. The only catch is that it is not supported by older browsers, such as Internet Explorer. However, a way around this is to have JPEG or PNG as a fallback and serve these instead in older browsers.  

What are the advantages of using next-gen images?

There are a few different ways in which using next-gen image formats can help you optimize your website. One is that they can help reduce the file size of your images, which can speed up your website’s load time. Another way is that they can improve the quality of your images, making them look better and more professional.

Moreover, next-gen images can also help you save money on bandwidth costs. This is because they are typically more efficient than traditional image formats, meaning that they use less data to achieve the same quality level. This means that you won’t have to pay as much for bandwidth when using next-gen image formats.

In a nutshell, these are the major benefits:

  • Smaller file sizes: Next-generation image formats are typically more efficient at compressing images, which can result in smaller file sizes. This can be especially beneficial for websites that need to load quickly.
  • Improved image quality: Some next-generation image formats offer improved image quality, especially at smaller file sizes. This can be useful for images that need to be displayed at a high resolution or with a lot of detail.
  • Enhanced features: Some next-gen images offer enhanced features that are not available with traditional image formats. For example, some next-generation image formats support transparency or animation, which can be useful for certain types of images.
  • Better performance: Next-gen images can often be decoded and displayed more quickly than traditional image formats, which can improve the overall performance of a website.
  • Reduced bandwidth usage: Using smaller file sizes can help to reduce the amount of bandwidth required to transfer images, which can be beneficial for websites with a large number of visitors or a global audience.

If you are still in two minds on whether you need to convert your JPEG and PNG images on your website, remember that even a one-second difference in loading time can have a big impact. According to Website Builder Expert:

  • A 1-second delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%.
  • 40% of users wait no more than 3 seconds before abandoning a website.

Besides this, using next-gen images can help you boost your SEO. One of the biggest recommendations of the web analyzer Google PageSpeed Insights is to switch to next-gen image formats, such as WebP. So, if you want to rank higher on Google’s search engine, converting your website images to next-gen formats is worthwhile.

How to convert your images to next-gen formats

Since we launched the new image converter feature for Tinify API users, WebP has been the most converted image type – around 80%. If you’re an API user looking to improve your website speed, this new feature allows you to do that in just one step, simply by making a “convert request” in your code. The Tinify algorithm will automatically convert and compress your images. This assures that you have the smallest version possible of your image without losing quality. API users can find all the information needed to start converting their JPEG, PNG, and WebP images here

Next-gen images: JPEG vs. WebP example
Can you spot the difference?

For non-developer users – such as WordPress users – you’ll need to use a WebP image converter tool and manually upload your pictures into Tinify’s online tool to maximize the level of compression. After it, you must upload them manually to your website. In the future, along with image compression, we’ll also offer the image converter feature to Web Pro users. Keep an eye out for this on Twitter or LinkedIn!

TL;DR:

  • Next-gen images are designed to be faster on the web and offer better compression, allowing for smaller file sizes while maintaining high quality;
  • Examples of next-gen image formats include WebP, AVIF, HEIF, and JPEG 2000;
  • WebP is the most widely supported of these formats, but fallback options are necessary for older browsers;
  • Next-gen formats will improve your website speed and SEO, according to Google;
  • API users can convert PNG and JPEG images to WebP with the new image converter feature. 

Image compression plugin: Better images with Tinify WordPress Plugin

A simple way to increase the loading time of your website is to compress the images. If you have a WordPress website, Tinify’s image compression plugin might be very helpful. This plugin can automatically compress all your images by integrating with the popular image compression services from Tinify. You can choose between the different compression options, just how you like it!

Developer API’s for better and faster image compression

An Developer API is a quick solution to compress a lot of images on your website in no time. Instead of manually uploading all your photos within an online compression tool, an API can do it all at once. It saves you a lot of time and besides, compressed images make your page speed way faster. It has a positive influence on how long users will stay on your webpage. But what is an API and how can you compress images with it?

WebP images: why should you use them to improve your website?

WebP is an image file format created by Google that is meant for web use. It enables small file sizes while preserving quality. There is barely a contrast between your original picture and the WebP image and there can be minimal quality loss or no loss. By using your files in WebP format on your website you save a lot of data storage which ensures that your website loads faster.