Optimizing Your Shopify Images in 3 Easy Steps

Don't neglect Shopify image optimization, or you'll experience slow loading times despite having gorgeous product shots and stunning collection images. Ensure your images are properly optimized to avoid this issue.

No one likes a slow website, and that goes double for mobile users. Trust us, you don't want to be the person responsible for ruining all those perfectly good shopping trips with a sluggish site.

Take the time to optimize your images, and watch your store soar!

Unfortunately, most merchants only rely on Shopify’s automated optimization, but it isn’t enough.

An e-commerce site that takes 1 second to load has a conversion rate 2.5 times higher than one that takes 5 seconds to load.

Some people might not realize just how crucial images are for the overall performance of a website, but trust me - they make a big impact!

• Improve the user experience
• Faster site speed
• Improves website ranking

Alrighty folks, it's time to delve into the juicy details of image optimization for a Shopify store! We're gonna break it down step by step, so buckle up and get ready to learn all about these three super useful techniques.

Step 1: Choose the correct file extension for your images.

Before you start modifying your images, make sure you’ve chosen the best file type. There are several types of files you can use:

Use JPEGs or WebP (preferred) for blog post images, screenshots, etc. The smaller size will protect site speed, and most images will be clear enough. Gladly, Shopify automatically serves JPEGs ad WebP images to improve the performance.

Use PNGs or SVGs (preferred) for icons, logos, and images where someone might zoom in. PNGs are larger but slightly higher-quality images.

I strongly recommend against using other image formats on your site, especially GIFs. I love a good GIF, but they really do slow your site down.

Step 2: Resize your images depending on the placement.

Let’s take a look at size recommendations for specific types of images for the web, as they’re not all the same. There are five main types of images you’ll see on a website: background images, hero images, banners, blog images, and logos.

• Hero image: Between 1280x720 — 2500x900 pixels, horizontal format.
• Blog image: 2240x1260 pixels, horizontal format.
• Logo: Around 250x250 pixels, depending on the logo shape.
• Product image: 2048 x 2048 pixels, square format.
• Collection image: 1024x1024 for showcasing in pages with all collections or between  1280x720 — 2500x900 if using as hero image.
• Mega menu images: Something around 360x360 pixels.
• Checkout top banner: 1800x300 pixels.

Step 3: Compress your images.

Image compression is a handy technique for reducing the size of large image files, making them quicker to load on the internet or store on your device. When done correctly, image compression can strike the perfect balance between maintaining image quality and reducing file size.

If you're in need of a quick and easy way to resize, crop, or convert the format of your images, check out tinypng.com, iloveimg.com and resizing.app.

Get ready to cash in, because a little bit of action on your part could result in a major payoff! Just think, a 10% boost in your conversion rate on a store that brings in 50k per month could add an extra 5k to your bottom line. That's some serious extra dough, don't you think?

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