Why Bigger Isn’t Better For Your Blog
How to help your blog load faster
Page speed got you down?
Google and Alexa both saying you’re not fast enough?
Why are Angry birds so Angry? Because Backyardigans are camera hogs.
Here’s a quick tip on how to make your blog load faster for free.
As bloggers, we all love adding pictures to our blogs.
It’s recommended by every blogging guru out there and by Google.
It adds a bit of spark to your post and help break up text.
BUT if you’re uploading pictures incorrectly, you’re putting pressure on your server to display those pictures.
Here’s the deal.
- An average site is 960 pixels wide. Mine happens to be 1105 pixels wide, but I’m a bloody rebel, so it’s all good.
- A picture taken with your smartphone, is on average 1600 pixels wide.
- Pictures grabbed from photo stock sites like Fotolia.com or Creative Commons search of Google Images can be anywhere from 800 to 2300 pixels wide.
- Average post areas are around 500 to 700 pixels wide.
- On average, bloggers insert pictures in their posts and choose the medium option, which can be 300 or 400 pixels wide or the thumbnail option which is about 50pixels wide.
Basically, if you’re not shrinking your picture first, you’re putting pressure on your server to read this huge ass files and scale it down to display at the size you’ve chosen.
And scaling the image from within WordPress doesn’t help, because the server will still have to deal with this huge ass image you uploaded.
So today, I’m sharing with you a simple, free way to give your readers and Google what it wants – a speeder site!
It won’t solve all your worries and if you’ve been uploading your pictures at the exact size you plan to post, then this won’t help you at all. But it’s still cool to watch. Cause ya’ know…it stars me!
And hey, if you’ve found the video helpful, do a fellow blogger a solid and share!
Oh, by the way, it’s posted on youtube, that’s why i mention heading back to the blog to read the post.
Just to clarify.
No I’m not crazy.
Though I’ve been sick for over a week and bogged down with work.
Someone make me soup…please.
Ok, going to drag my sinus infection back to bed. Chow peeps.
great tip, I should probably really do this!
eschelle recently posted..10 Things I Know About Friday the 13th
OMG it’s friday the 13th? lol. i didn’t realize until i saw your link.
thanks for stopping by and sharing girlie!
Oh, feel better!
This is a lesson I learned the hard way! Even if you reduce in WP library it still doesn’t ACTUALLY reduce. I still keep mine a little bigger than needed – I guess I am a rebel too : )
Ann recently posted..Friday the…
Ann did you just say you’ve got soup? is it chicken? carrots in it? that would be awesome…
my rebel sistah! i’m still uploading at least one big picture per certain posts because i hope to put a slider on the homepage next month and it will need big pics.
Vanita Cyril recently posted..Why Bigger Isn’t Better For Your Blog
Thanks Vanita. I really needed this!
PragmaticMom recently posted..Little Boy Book Club: The Boy Who Changed the World
thank you for the inspiration mama!
Vanita Cyril recently posted..Trapped
First things first: Here’s your soup ma’am.
In the old days – when the ships were made of wood and the men made of steel- bandwidth was a real issue for downloading stuff from the internet. There were some text – based browsers around (like Lynx on Unix) – that didn’t even download graphics on websites at all. Nowadays it’s not really an issue anymore, unless your ISP allows you 5 Gig of throughput a month and you got a trillion visitors.
Re-sizing pictures to an ‘acceptable’ format is one option. Another would be to convert the picture to ‘web optimized palette’ (256 colors). Saves a bunch of band with…
JanB recently posted..What is the value of your site
Blah Jan, 256 colors suck.
and are you kidding me about it not being an issue? my site didn”t start moving fast until i signed up for a cdn because of the images. remember i use to have lots of pics on the homepage? thumbnails for the different posts in different sections? when i removed the thumbnails, the homepage would load like magic. you click on the home button and Tadaa! homepage. but then the post pages would still load slow, and i’ve got to admit, i was uploading pretty big files for the old slider. since i plan to put a slider back up and i like my thumbnails i shelled out for a cdn. but when you need to speed up your site on the cheap, the first culprit to look at are those pics my friend.
Vanita Cyril recently posted..Trapped
Not saying I’m not worried about load times. Pics use server space & bandwidt – when downloading to display a page. And 256 colors dates back from the eighties, when a 14K4 modem was the standard. Atleast 256 colors is still considered to be web-safe.
On the server side: The most used format for pics in blogs is JPG or JPEG. When they reside on that pretty little server they can take op a lot of space. Compacting them – or the database – does not help, because JPEG and JPG are compressed images as they are. So,bottom line is, easy on the number of pics and / or the size of them. Are the thumbnails actually downsized versions of the original picture. That way they still have the same file-size and download time.
Different formats? GIF and PNG are small sized bastards to. Well if size really matters…
JanB recently posted..Google+ Unexpected Powers
Jan i just noticed my soup, thank you!
i recommend png over jpeg. jpeg being a compressed file, it takes longer to read due to the compression. if you run a post link that contains jpeg pictures through gtmetrix or google’s page speed it will also recommend you replace jpeg with png.
even in printing we recommend not using jpeg. it adds load time to the print server.
Vanita Cyril recently posted..Why Bigger Isn’t Better For Your Blog
I don’t remember where – but I read about this picture uploading goof-up recently and felt rather stupid. It makes sense that trying to adjust the picture size to small/medium/whatever still puts pressure on the server to dish it up – in fact, worse because there’s work for it to do.
My question is this – is this the same on a Blogger blog even if we upload to Picasa and then, while writing the post, choose photos from the Picasa album? What? Don’t look at me like that. I am asking ‘cuz I don’t know.
Mmmuah.
Vidya Sury recently posted..From Flatulence to Flat
“My question is this – is this the same on a Blogger blog even if we upload to Picasa and then, while writing the post, choose photos from the Picasa album? What? Don’t look at me like that. I am asking ‘cuz I don’t know.”
Eh, I don’t bloody know either sis. This is definitely a Q for Mayura. He is the Blogger Guru as far as I’m concerned.
Vanita Cyril recently posted..Why Bigger Isn’t Better For Your Blog
Hi Vidya,
Is it same on Blogger?
Yes dear. It’s a matter of source image file you are referring to. When you render an image on a post or elsewhere, eventhough you scale it down or not, server will get busy reading whole source file first. Server will request image file, then the image will read, process and send back the requested scaled version of image to render on your post.
As Picasa runs on same set of servers at Google, you will see an improvement of few milliseconds rather than if your images hosted on other image hosting website like Flickr, where we don’t see a major improvement in loading time. ‘Cause it cuts down request and waiting time and load image faster. However it depends on efficiency of the server where image has been uploaded and again on your bandwidth.
So as Vanita suggested, you better upload shrinked version of your image and use web optimized file type. PNG is a great choice
Hope it helps you to understand and yeah, kinda technical
I hope you wouldn’t find it as a PROGRAMMING lesson 
Have a doubt? You can find Reply link beneath mine 
Thanks Van
And you said don’t know but you know part of it, nah? 
Cheers…
Mayura recently posted..How to Purchase and Set Up a Custom Domain for Your Blog in Blogger
Mayura! Thanks for the explanation. Let’s see if I get it. What you are saying is, if I want a medium sized image, I should scale it down on my hard disk and upload it in the exact size I want to Picasa, and from there, add it to my blog. OR. Scale down the image size to the size I want on my hard disk. And upload it directly to my blog post. And ignore tinkering with it when it tempts me with the small/medium/large option. Preferably, also convert before uploading to PNG. Is that right?
I found that when I upload the x-large size and in the blog post, change it to L size and enable the lightbox option in blogger’s settings, clicking the photo brings up the original size uploaded, which is x-large. Hmm.
Now the question is – does this hold good when we publish to blogger via Windows Live Writer?
(Yes, I can be a bit of a pest this way.) Hugs! Vidya
Vidya Sury recently posted..From Flatulence to Flat
Ok..replying to my own comment, Mayura – Windows Live Writer shouldn’t make a diff since the photos go to Picasa anyway.
Vidya Sury recently posted..From Flatulence to Flat
Hi Vidya,
Exactly, Scale Down >> Save as “PNG” or such web optimized image type >> Upload
Yeah, ignore Small/Medium/Large but make sure it’s in “Original” size 
If you add images via Blogger post editor, they will be hosted on Picasa Web Albums – The default image hosting site for Blogger
So (i) Upload to Picasa and add image to post and (ii) Upload image directly from Blogger post editor, make no BIG difference 
There are situations where if you scale down, the image will be blurry. In that scenario, you need to think about the quality of image
So uploading unedited image and let readers view it through light box would be helpful to increase user experience, no? 
Cheers…
Mayura recently posted..How to Purchase and Set Up a Custom Domain for Your Blog in Blogger
“uploading unedited image and let readers view it through light box would be helpful to increase user experience” = Yes to this. But in that case I would have to choose the small/medium/large/x-large option because the original option would be way too big for the blog.
So I think the optimum option is to scale down > convert to PNG > upload to Picasa > add to blog. Then let the user decide what to do with it. Speaking for myself – image quality won’t be a problem with scaling down because I shoot BIG sizes.
Vidya Sury recently posted..From Flatulence to Flat
LOL
So image quality would never be a problem. Oh yeah, that would be the optimum solution dear 
Your site performance will be improved 
In large scale images, you can make use of Small/Medium/Large option and users will decide what to do with the images.
Cheers…
Mayura recently posted..How to Purchase and Set Up a Custom Domain for Your Blog in Blogger
Hi Van,
This is a great way to optimize sites and yet more people don’t know
Informative dear. Not bound to WordPress, works with others too. Images are not like text and adds more workload to servers. So it’s always better to use shrinked version as you mentioned 
Easy to use and yet free. Nothing to worry about
Great online tool. Actually I wanna try it on my Android mobile 
Owps… Nice to hear your voicy too… I’m glad in future if bloggers doesn’t need to worry about server processing and all
Cheers…
Mayura recently posted..How to Purchase and Set Up a Custom Domain for Your Blog in Blogger
Mayura thanks so much for assisting. you are definitely the Blogger Guru. I hope you don’t mind me passing these Qs to you. I rather provide friends with answers from someone with deep working knowledge then my fragmented barely remembered memories of blogger. lol. and i did see there are android and iphone apps for pixlr too. this has to be recent because two years ago they didn’t offer it. as far as my fragmented memory remembers.
Vanita Cyril recently posted..Why Bigger Isn’t Better For Your Blog
You’re welcome dear
Ohw no worries. Glad if I can help someone as I can. I hope Vidya able to figure it out 
Else I ll get a punch in my face for keep waiting her until the useless reply 
I didn’t see your request earlier as I was busy and I thought it was sent yesterday 
But when I see the time. it sent an hour ago 
LOL…
Cheers…
Mayura recently posted..How to Purchase and Set Up a Custom Domain for Your Blog in Blogger
Hi Vanita,
Appreciate the easy to follow video lesson. One of the things I need to do is go through my blog and “fix” all of the pix I have already loaded. Makes me cringe to think about it, but it would be beneficial. Damn, so many things that are good for us take work.
Jack recently posted..This Is How You Do It
Jack, I say fix only recent posts cause really, it’s gonna suck trying to fix all. Also, you can try the Smushit plugin. it compresses pictures, existing and new ones, without degrading quality, however, it is butt ass slow when you upload pics because you have to wait on smushit to do it’s thing.
Vanita recently posted..WordPress Image Sliders And Galleries That Kick Ass
I learned something today!
Actually, I didn’t realize this but sometimes depending on the picture, I DO already scale it down in my Windows Live Photo Gallery! Go figure. I’ll definitely have to start doing this for all the pictures I include on my blog.
Thanks for the advice and wicked awesome video
Kayla recently posted..Care for Some Bead Soup Anyone?
you are welcome my darling sweet friend. tank you for stopping by!
Vanita recently posted..Why Bigger Isn’t Better For Your Blog
Awesome tips V! Shared the knowledge!
you are wonderful beautiful lady. thank you
Vanita recently posted..Create An Ebook in 6.5 hrs (when a blogger insults you)
Great tips! I will have to go through my site now and implement your advice. I never knew that you need to do this, so having someone like you educate me, is awesome! Thankf ror the tip!
Her Social Network recently posted..1. So I Am Hooked on the Nook…
Hey Girl, thanks for stopping by! remember, only when a page with huge pictures are being loaded will it cause a strain on your server. so you don’t have to adjust all the picture on your site. however, I would suggest using a cdn or trying smushit, but! if it ain’t broken, leave that bad boy alone girl!
Eeek sorry you’re sick!!! Get well soon and thank you for the tip. I know this, but I know many don’t because so many blogs load so slowly because of the huge ass pictures!
Alison recently posted..Memories Captured – July Link Up! And Some News
the huge pictures and the crap in the sidebar girl. notice i no longer have social media faceboxes in my sidebar? no facebook, networked blogs or blogfrog…they were adding load time to my site.
This is awesome, Vanita! I had no idea that my server was storing those larger images, even if I made them smaller within WordPress. So thank you for that! I’ll be sharing this now! xo.
Jessica recently posted..Photography lighting tips to get pictures like the pros
you’re welcome girlie!
This is an awesome pointers, V! Thanks for this. Hope you feel better soon.
definitely feeling better! thanks sis
Well, I came from Mayura’s Blog, and hmmmm now I want to come out from the open to talk to other bloggers like you… I found this post so helpful… and wow, I just realized this is true. Why not shrink or resize the image first before uploading it to the server? I guess, some blogger are not used to post editor and that happened to me before – I was lazy to crop the image or edit a little bit, not now though. In case of blogger platform, images are hosted at picasa, but it’s always good to help them do the loading for us – resize, and renaming it – good for SEO… Thanks Van! My first time here 
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Welcome! and my pleasure glad you enjoyed the post
Thank you for this great article. I am new to blogging and this is new info for me.
your welcome. thanks for stopping by. i apologize for the late relpy. my daughter has been in and out of the hospital since i wrote this post.