Owning a website, blog or virtual store with super loading speed is the desire of all Webmasters on the planet. So one of the ways to improve loading speed is by using Webp image formats. But you must be wondering now, what the hell is this format?

 

It is nothing more than a modern image format with a high quality standard. But with its file size much smaller than Jpeg and Png files.

 

In this short and quick article here you will learn all about cutting-edge images, as well as how to use this modern image format in your WordPress projects. So let's go learn more?

What is WebP?

It is nothing more than a modern format for image files created by Google itself more or less in 2010. This format in turn offers much higher compression rates for images while maintaining its quality of course.

 

So with that, website developers can create images with much smaller files, thus providing much faster loading.

 

This image format uses much more powerful compression techniques, both in the Lossy type (lossy) and in the Lossless type (lossless), when compared to the Jpeg and Png formats. The lossless compression rate means that every Bit of the original data will remain the same after extracting the files.

 

However, the lossless compression rate of Webp will allow you to reduce the size of images by up to 25%, when compared to a PNG file. However, there is also lossy compression, which in turn reduces the file size when a certain amount of original data is removed.

 

So when using forward programming to do image encoding, lossy type Webp provides similar quality with Jpeg file. Reducing image sizes from 24 to 34%.

 

What are the advantages of using it?

As already mentioned in the previous topic, using smaller image sizes can indeed make a huge difference to your website, blog or online store. As this will help load the page much more fast.

 

Another positive point that we cannot fail to mention is that using images in this new format you will also be saving much more bandwidth on the server. For example: if you are a photographer and use a lot of photos.

 

So to make your understanding even better, here's a brief explanation about the Png and Jpeg formats.

• PNG: it is certainly an excellent file type and maintains image quality, even compressed. This type of format is good for images that use a lot of pixels or data.

 

For example: logos, images containing a lot of text and illustrations. However, this file type will not work well with photographs.

• Jpg or Jpeg: It is an excellent format for images that use a lot of colors, and it is also the preferred option for still images. But however this type of file has a downside, it loses quality when compressed.

 

That's why images in Webp is the perfect combination offering the best between the 2 formats mentioned. In addition to providing a much smaller format, it always maintains image quality.

 

Your disadvantages:

So now that you know the advantages of using state-of-the-art image formats, we will also mention some disadvantages. However, we guarantee that the advantages are much greater.

 

First of all, we would like to say that browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera, which are the most used in the world, support the Webp file. But Internet Explorer and Safari browsers still don't. But of course, those 2 browsers mentioned last certainly weren't left behind and soon supported the format as well.

 

And if you are a user of the WordPress platform, know that it supports images like this in this format. So this means that it is possible to upload (upload) state-of-the-art files to your media library in WordPress. And there are also plugins to do the conversion, as we will see below.

 

How to use Webp in WordPress:

We made a small list with some plugins that you can use to transform your images into Webb.

 

ShortPixel:

You can display state-of-the-art images on your WordPress site with ease using the plugin ShortPixel. It is a free and simple to use plugin. With it you will also be improving the Seo of your web project, as it will load much faster and be optimized.

 

ShortPixel uses minimal resources and works perfectly well on any type of website hosting, such as Shared, Cloud, Dedicated and Vps hosting.

 

Lossy and lossless image compression are available for the most used files like Jpg, Jpeg and Png, and also files in Pdf format.

 

Using optimized images improves the user experience, as well as improving the Developers PageSpeed, GTMetrix, and Pingdom scores. Improving your page rank and consequently increased your visitors. Excellent plugin option, and already has 200,000 active installations worldwide.

 

WebP Express:

Another excellent option is the plugin WebP Express. This plugin uses the Webp Convert Library to modify images. And that's why it serves as a super converter that generates files for web browsers that support this image format. But it also shows Png and Jpg formats for browsers that don't support it.

 

It is also compatible with all hosting services, consumes less server bandwidth, thus improving the loading time of your website. The plugin is also an excellent option and already has more than 60,000 active installations.

 

Imagify:

Boost your web site, blog or virtual store with Imagify, always have much sharper images without losing quality. It is considered the most advanced tool to date to use in WordPress. It is also compatible with all type of hosting, and offers 3 different levels of compression.

 

It has 2 versions, one being free that allows you to optimize 25 Mb of image files (approximately 250 images per month). Imagify also has a paid version that starts at $$4.99 per month, allowing you to optimize up to 10,000 images (about 1Gb).

 

And it goes up to the most expensive plan of $ 69.99 dollars that allows you to optimize no less than 500,000 images per month (about 50Gb). But it's worth every penny paid regardless of the plan.

 

Brief conclusion:

So now that you're already on the subject of Webp images, which will definitely help you to have high quality images and smaller file sizes with much more quality on your website.

 

It is very likely that you will immediately want to start using images in this format, since its purpose is to load your site much faster and that is what you want.

 

In addition to saving your server bandwidth if you use a lot of images in your projects. As mentioned in the article there are advantages and disadvantages, but certainly using it is much more advantageous.

 

We hope you enjoyed this article and hands on, optimize your site and see you in the next article ?

 

 

Read too:

? The Best Free Image Banks on the Internet.
? How It Works and How to Use Google Images Search?