In this article I will provide the 10 best image optimization plugins to make your images more SEO friendly for your WordPress site.
1. Smush
The Smush is used for WordPress image optimization plugins by compressing your images individually via the WordPress media manager or compressing images in bulk via the Bulk Smush sub-menu item under “Media.”
This plugin works by stripping meta data from JPEG files, optimizing JPEG compression, converting certain GIFs to PNGs.
2. EWWW Image Optimizer
Next Image Optimization Plugins is EWWW Image Optimizer automatically and losslessly optimizes your images as you upload them to your site. It can also optimize the images you have uploaded.
Another nice feature of this plugin is the ability to convert your images to the file format that produces the smallest image size. It can also optionally apply lossy reduction to PNG images.
3. CW Image Optimizer
CW Image Optimizer is another plugin that automatically and losslessly optimizes your images as you upload them to your site, and can optimize previously uploaded images.
This plugin is based on WP Smush.it, although unlike the WPMU DEV plugin which uses the Yahoo! Inc. Smush.it, CW Image Optimizer uses the littleutils Linux image optimization tool. This means your images never leave your server.
4. Imsanity
Don’t be scared off by Imsanity’s weird feature images in the WordPress Plugin Repository. This free plugin automatically resizes images to a more reasonable size.
A nice feature of Imsanity is the ability to set the maximum width, height and quality. You can also convert BMP files to JPG so that images can be enhanced.
5. Hammy
If you take adaptive design seriously, you might want to consider using Hammy. This plugin takes your image and regenerates a number of smaller images. So when a visitor arrives on your site, they see the most appropriately sized (or smallest possible) image. This makes for a better and faster experience, especially for mobile users. Hammy only works for images in posts and pages.
6. PB Responsive Images
The default configuration provides the required image sizes for the Twenty Eleven theme for reference; You have to adjust the configuration to match your wordpress Theme. Eace images are reformatted based on standard CSS media queries and SLIR image query pairs, providing a great amount of flexibility in various query combinations. For example, with a media query (min-width: 500) and a resize query from Width 700, the 700 pixel version of the image will only be displayed when the screen is larger than 500 pixels wide. In addition, this plugin provides shortcodes that allow you to customize queries used per image, and helper functions that can be used to customize queries used per post or per layout.
7. SEO Friendly Images
SEO Friendly Images will edit all your images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes to help optimize images on the SEO side which aims to improve your image SEO. If your images don’t have ALT and TITLE already set, this plugin adds them according to the options you specify.
Is it worth using the ALT and TITLE attributes? yes. because the ALT attribute describes your image to search engines, while the TITLE automatically appears in the tooltip when the user highlights the image.
8. Media File Renamer
Media File Renamer allows you to rename your media files by updating their titles. It also automatically updates their links within posts.
Search engines like Google give a lot of importance to put the name to be important and descriptive and to use the right keywords to improve the SEO of your images.
9. Lazy Load
This Lazy Load plugin doesn’t need any configuration as it works out-of-the-box. Using jQuery.sonar only loads the image when the page is visible above the fold. This plugin is an amalgamation of code written by the VIP WordPress.com team at Automattic, the TechCrunch 2011 Redesign team, and Jake Goldman from WordPress consulting 10up.
10. BJ Lazy Load
BJ Lazy Load is a plugin that allows you to optimize selected WordPress images, including posting images and thumbnails, Gravatar and Iframe images, and replacing content with placeholders. It will display the image only when the position of the image is visible on your browser screen and it will lighten the load of the page when it loads.
Unlike Lazy Load, there are some simple settings that allow you to customize how the plugin works, such as selecting placeholders. This plugin caters for image sizes to optimize, automatically renders small-scale images in responsive designs, and automatically serves hiDPI images for hiDPI screens (such as Apple retina displays).