Optimole is an all-in-one WordPress image optimisation solution that is super easy to set up and get going for free. It is fully cloud-based and processes your images in real-time. It also creates next-generation formats such as Webp for your images which is what Google is currently recommending.
Lighter images mean faster loading websites and improved website performance.
Images tend to be one of the main reasons why a page load time is slow. So if you follow Google’s best image optimisation practice you will see a significant difference in your performance.
The great thing about Optimole is the features it has even with a free account.
- 5,000 Visits Monthly
- Auto Scaled Images
- Smart Lazy-Loading
- Cloudfront CDN (200+ locations) (which is amazing!_
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- 48h Email Support
Step by step guide to set up Optimole on your WordPress Site.
1) Add and activate Optimole plugin to your WordPress Website
Go to your WordPress dashboard. On the left of the screen hover to Plugins and press on add new.
You have now installed and activated the plugin!
Now you need to set it up in a way to maximise your image optimisation.
Click the Register and E-mail API key to begin.
2) Register for an optimole account.
Once you click the Register and E-mail API key you will see some prompts asking you to create an account.
After you input an email address, check your email to activate your account. Make sure to make note of your username and password so you can access the optimole dashboard.
3) Copy your API key from your optimole dashboard and paste it into the optimole plugin on your website.
In the email sent you your email address, click the click here to activate your account which will take you to your dashboard. On your dashboard, you will find the API that you will need to let you connect all of the optimal services.
Copy your API key and go back to your website.
Inside your optimole plugin, paste your API and click connect to Optimole Service.
4) Configure the Optimole settings tab
After a couple of seconds, you will see the below notification informing you that you are now connected.
You can leave the plugin as is or you can use the below steps to make sure that you are utilising this amazing plugin to its fullest potential.
Once you have set up Optimole it works on autopilot. However, there are several options that can give you more control. To start, head over to the setting tab inside the plugin dashboard on your WordPress website.
In this tab, you have three main areas.
- The General Tab
- The Advanced Tab
- The Cloud Integration Tab
1- Configure the General Tab in optimole
Enable both image replacement and Scale images and lazy load and press save.
In this tab, you also have the option to clear cached resources. This is helpful when you update and resources on your website and optimole still shows an older version. But clearing the cached resources, the newer updated resources will appear.
2- Configure the advanced tab
The advanced section of the plugin goes deeper in optimisation. As of Jun 2021, this section has four subsections:
- Compression
- Resize
- Lazy Load
- Exclusions
A) Compression Tab
Start with compression first. In this tab
In this tab, you can choose to enable network-based optimisation, Serve CSS and JS through Optimole (which is useful if you have images in CSS and JS files) Enable Gif to Video conversion as well as Image quality.
Play around with the different settings to see which option suits your needs. In most cases, I would enable network-based optimisation and leave the image quality on high.
Make sure to always press save before moving to another tab otherwise any changes you make will be lost.
B) Resize Tab
In this tab enable Retina images, which will deliver retina-ready images for your visitors and leave the rest as is.
C) Lazy Load Tab
In the lazy load tab, I will usually make sure that Scale images and Enable Lazyload for background images are enabled and leave the rest of the page as is.
D) Exclusions Tab
In this final advanced tab, you have the option to make specific exclusions if you prefer. So if you have a specific image you don’t want to optimise this is where you will add it.
However, for me, I just leave this tab as is without any exclusions.
3- Configure the cloud integration tab in optimole
Because I am using the free version of the optimole plugin. I will disable – Enable cloud library browsing as well as Enable offloading images.
That’s it!
You may ask how do I make sure it is serving next-generation formats ( such as Webp) like what Google is recommending that I use?
Well in the case of optimole, you don’t have to worry! According to Optimole, “By default, Optimole serves images in WebP format for every visitor that supports this format. You don’t need to do anything to activate this, all is done by our service automatically when someone who is using a WebP compatible browser is checking your site”.
Other WordPress image Optimisation Plugins that you can try
There are. a lot of image optimisation plugins out there, I am sure there will continue to be more plugins coming into the market. Some other awesome wordpress image optimisation plugins I have tried include the following:
- Imagify – Imagify is an image optimisation plugin that works in harmony with WP-Rocket (a cashe plugin) They are both by the same company. Check out this link to see how best to configure Imagify plugin.
- Smush – Smush is another popular free optimisation plugin that aims at compressing your images while preserving its quality. This is a useful video to see how best to confgure smuch plugin.
- EWWW- according to wp engine, “EWWW Image Optimizer is built to improve your page speed with comprehensive and flexible image optimization features”. Read their documentation on how best to configure EWWW plugin.