Page Abandon Rate When Your Site Isn’t Optimized for Mobile

In 2018, Google changed its search ranking algorithms for mobile to include page speed. As a result, pages that load faster are going to be more likely to catch the eye – and clicks of those looking for your products or services. Otherwise, users are far more likely to abandon your page and turn to a competitor.

Page optimization for mobile is more critical today due to Google’s shift. One key element of your page development strategy needs to focus on visual content size, especially when it comes to image optimization.

Once page loading speed became a factor in search ranking, Google saw a decrease in page abandonment, more focus by web developers on evaluating page speed and a worldwide improvement in page load performance, even among the slowest traffic.

Why Do Page Load Times Matter?

Improving your page load times is all about the customer experience. Web optimization means providing the customer with a visit that delights and inspires them to take action, whether through a purchase or request for more information.

Image content is a key driver of the page load time, the majority of which is spent downloading images, style sheets, scripts and other visual elements. There are two important considerations to keep in mind. First, If your company is global, realize that mobile users could be accessing your site on networks run on LTE, 4G or even 3G or 2G. Slower networks are going to be even slower with images that are not optimized. The second consideration is that, regardless of network speed, if your site has large image sizes, load times are going to lag.

What Are Some of the Primary Reasons Images Slow Down Page Loads?

In order to improve your page load speed and reduce your abandonment rates, you need to understand how images can slow things down. Here are some of the most common reasons:

• • File size. If your images are “heavy,” it’s going to take a while to load them, a problem compounded based on how many large files you have on the site.
  • File format. Browsers prefer GIF, JPG and PNG file types as they are smaller and load faster. If your site is using heavy formats like BMP or TIFF, your load times will be slower.
  • Unspecified dimensions. Scaling your images is important. Otherwise, browsers will need to load more information than is actually necessary.
  • Text graphics. Visuals that contain text can take longer to load than those that are just font-based.

What does image optimization entail?

Optimizing your images is a series of steps that get them in the best possible shape for mobile and desktop viewing. Here’s a look at the most common steps to take:

• • • Resize the images to reduce image size and file size. Other considerations in this step are to:
      • Select the right file format
      • Pick the right compression rate
      • Test image loading times
    • Optimize image file names, using relevant and descriptive keywords
    • Use alt tags to help web crawlers find your photos and pages better
    • Improve the image title, especially if using a WordPress site
    • Use captions
    • Select unique images
    • Add structured data
    • Create site maps that help Google and other search engines understand your page structure

How to Optimize Images for Mobile

Filestack offers cloud-based services that optimize your files for use on applications, whether on mobile or desktop. If your websites host large numbers of images, you need a solution that gets images sized and optimized fast in order for sites to load quickly.

With Filestack, you can enhance your image processing in the following ways:

• • • Immediate transformations. Intuitive functionality that’s easy to integrate any image at any URL. With user-specified parameters, you can automatically generate transformed images.
    • Instant adjustments. Use Filestack’s Upload and Transform services to create a processing workflow for your user-provided content, creating the best possible images no matter the format or source.
    • Scalability. Filestack can act as your image processing infrastructure for images stored on S3 or other cloud platforms. Filestack gives you the ability to transform millions of images without the need for additional infrastructure.

How does Filestack help optimize images?

Filestack provides an array of services that improve your images for use on websites including:

• • • Modification. Use Filestack’s content delivery network (CDN) to complete tasks on desired images’ URLs. Multiple tasks, from image resizing to watermarking, can be chained together to further automate and accelerate image optimization and uploads.
    • Transformation. This tool lets you crop, circle and rotate images within our Web File Picker, with user options to activate any of the features. Other transformation options include flipping, flopping, converting JPG to PNG format, sharpening, cropping faces, pixelating or blurring faces, and adding monochrome or black and white versions. The code for transformations is added to the URL for each image.
    • Advanced Transformations. You can add more complex transformations such as the following;
      • Upscaling. This process increases the image size while preserving as much of the original detail as possible. This transformation works best on originals that are high quality and have a high pixel count. Upscaling does not work as well on photos from older cameras or those from social media sites, which often automatically reduce image size.
      • Enhancing. This is a wide-ranging term that represents different functions, such as changing an image’s focal point, enhancing a blurry background or changing the saturation or color intensity.
      • Watermarking. Use your preferred image to create an overlaid watermark.
      • Red-eye removal.

Filestack helps businesses around the world accelerate workflows and improve the way images are presented and used. Learn more about how Filestack can help your pages load faster and rank higher by signing up for free today.

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Filestack is a dynamic team dedicated to revolutionizing file uploads and management for web and mobile applications. Our user-friendly API seamlessly integrates with major cloud services, offering developers a reliable and efficient file handling experience.

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