How to Shrink Your WooCommerce Product Images (2019 Guide for Beginners)
Slow loading times on your WooCommerce store can kill your sales faster than you Check out this post: How To Show Woocommerce New Arrivals On Woocommerce Shop Page can say “abandoned cart.” One of the biggest culprits behind those slow loading times? You guessed it: large product images. Big images look nice, but they can significantly impact your site’s performance, leading to a poor user experience and lower search engine rankings.
This guide will walk you through several ways to make your product images smaller in WooCommerce in 2019, helping you boost your store’s speed and improve your customers’ shopping experience. We’ll focus on methods that are easy to implement, even if you’re a complete beginner.
Why Smaller Product Images Matter
Imagine you’re shopping for a new pair of shoes online. You click on a product page, but the image takes ages to load. You’re impatient, right? You’ll likely bounce back to Learn more about Woocommerce How To Hide The Downloads From My Account the search results and find another store that loads faster. This happens every single day, and stores with slow loading times are losing potential customers.
Here’s why optimizing your images is crucial:
- Faster Page Load Times: Smaller images mean faster loading pages, which keeps visitors engaged.
- Improved SEO: Google considers page speed a ranking factor. Faster sites rank higher in search results.
- Better User Experience: No one likes waiting. A smooth, fast-loading site makes for a happier customer.
- Reduced Bandwidth Usage: Lower bandwidth consumption can save you money on hosting costs, especially if you have a lot of traffic.
- Catalog Images: Images displayed on the product listing pages.
- Single Product Image: The main image shown on the individual product page.
- Product Thumbnails: Small images used in the cart, related products, etc.
- Free Online Tools: Websites like TinyPNG (also handles resizing) and ResizePixel are quick and easy to use.
- Image Editing Software: Programs like Photoshop, GIMP (free), or even Learn more about How To Take Donations In Woocommerce basic Windows Paint allow you to resize images.
- Lossy Compression: Reduces file size by discarding some image data. This is suitable for photographs and images where a slight loss in quality is acceptable. JPEG is a lossy format.
- Lossless Compression: Reduces file size without losing any image data. This is ideal for images with sharp lines and text, such as logos and graphics. PNG is a lossless format.
- TinyPNG: This is a popular and free online tool that uses smart lossy compression to reduce the file size of PNG and JPEG images. It’s incredibly easy to use – just drag and drop your images.
- ShortPixel (WordPress Plugin – Paid): A powerful WordPress plugin that automatically optimizes images on upload and can even optimize existing images. It offers both lossy and lossless compression options.
- Automatic Image Compression: Optimizes images automatically when you upload them.
- Bulk Optimization: Optimizes existing images in your media library.
- WebP Conversion: Converts images to the WebP format, which offers superior compression and quality compared to JPEG and PNG.
- Lazy Loading: Delays the loading of images until they are visible in the viewport, further improving page load times.
- ShortPixel (Paid): As mentioned earlier, ShortPixel is a popular choice for its ease of use and powerful features.
- Imagify (Freemium): Imagify offers a generous free plan and allows you to choose from three compression levels.
- Smush (Freemium): Read more about How To Set Paypal Account In Woocommerce Smush is a popular free plugin with a premium version that offers more features and higher compression rates.
1. Understanding WooCommerce Image Settings
Before diving into specific techniques, let’s understand how WooCommerce handles images. WooCommerce automatically generates different sizes of your uploaded images, tailored for various parts of your store (catalog pages, single product pages, thumbnails, etc.). These sizes are defined in the Customizer.
To access these settings, go to: Appearance > Customize > WooCommerce > Product Images.
You’ll see options like:
Key Takeaway: WooCommerce handles the creation of different image sizes, so optimizing the *source image* you upload is crucial.
2. Optimizing Your Source Images *Before* Uploading
This is arguably the most important step. Resizing and compressing your images *before* uploading them to WooCommerce makes a massive difference. Think of it like this: it’s far easier to carry a lightweight box up the stairs than a heavy one!
A. Resizing Your Images:
Don’t upload massive images that are far larger than necessary. If your “Single Product Image” is set to 800×800 pixels, there’s no point in uploading a 4000×4000 pixel image. It’s just wasting space and slowing things down.
Tools for Resizing:
How to Resize (Example with GIMP):
1. Open your image in GIMP.
2. Go to Image > Scale Image.
3. Enter the desired width and height (e.g., 800×800). Make sure the chain icon is linked if you want to maintain aspect ratio.
4. Click “Scale.”
5. Export the image as a JPEG file (see compression tips below).
B. Compressing Your Images:
Compression reduces the file size of your image *without* significantly impacting its visual quality. There are two main types of compression:
Tools for Compression:
How to Compress (Example with TinyPNG):
1. Go to TinyPNG.
2. Drag and drop your image files onto the website.
3. TinyPNG will automatically compress the images.
4. Download the optimized images.
Real-Life Example: Let’s say you have a product image that’s 2MB. By resizing it to 800×800 pixels and running it through TinyPNG, you could easily reduce it to 200KB or less, representing a *massive* improvement!
3. Using a WordPress Image Optimization Plugin
While optimizing your images before uploading is best practice, a WordPress image optimization plugin can automate the process and handle existing images. These plugins typically offer:
Recommended Plugins:
Important: Before installing any plugin, back up your website!
4. Optimizing WooCommerce Image Settings (Advanced)
While the Customizer options provide basic control, you can further fine-tune your image settings. However, this requires some coding knowledge.
A. Regenerating Thumbnails:
After changing your WooCommerce image settings, you’ll need to regenerate your thumbnails to apply the new sizes to existing images. Use a plugin like “Regenerate Thumbnails” to do this. This is a crucial step!
B. Using Filters (for Developers):
WooCommerce provides filters that allow you to modify the default image sizes and other settings.
For example, to change the single product image size, you could add the following code to your theme’s `functions.php` file (or a custom plugin):
function custom_woocommerce_single_product_image_size( $size ) { return array( 'width' => 600, 'height' => 600, 'crop' => 1, // Crop the image to fit the dimensions ); } add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_image_size_single', 'custom_woocommerce_single_product_image_size' );
Disclaimer: Modifying your theme’s `functions.php` file can be risky. Always back up your website first and consider using a child theme to prevent your changes from being overwritten during theme updates.
Conclusion
Optimizing your product images is a critical step in improving the performance of your WooCommerce store. By resizing and compressing your images *before* uploading them, using a WordPress image optimization plugin, and fine-tuning your WooCommerce image settings, you can significantly reduce your page load times and provide a better shopping experience for your customers. Start optimizing today and watch your sales soar!
