Does Image Size Affect Page Load Speed?

When you put stuff on a web page, it will slow down the page, the more you add on. You can't help it, you have to have text on a page and you have to put images on the page.

However, how can you make sure to have images on a page but still have a web page that loads in an efficient time frame? Does that matter if it loads slowly or not? While this post is inspired by our Chicago SEO squad, it matters for us professional graphic designers, such as our Chicago graphic design team, because we make images for websites-- images, graphics, logos, etc. So we need to know this stuff too!

Well, to start, it does matter for two reasons. Humans hate slow web pages. When you have a web page that loads slowly, a person will wait only a couple seconds before they bail. This will increase your bounce rate for search engine optimization rankings. Also, search engine crawlers hate slow web pages because that makes them do their job slower. A slow page will get penalized by search engines.

So what can you do to keep a page optimized with images, graphics, and such while keeping the page quick? Keep you images to a smaller file size, while keeping them at a good resolution. Images consume the most download bytes on a web page and take up the most amount of visual space. 

Optimizing images is both a delicate science and an intricate art.

Do you have questions about the information here or would like to hire a graphic designer? Then contact Integraphix, a Chicago marketing firm.