OpenMyLink: image optimization for faster bio page loading

As the web becomes increasingly visual, it's more important than ever to make sure your images are optimized for faster bio page loading. Image optimization is the process of reducing the file size of your images without sacrificing quality.

Why optimize images for bio pages

As the web becomes increasingly visual, it's more important than ever to make sure your images are optimized for faster bio page loading. Image optimization is the process of reducing the file size of your images without sacrificing quality. A bio page that loads quickly keeps visitors around; a bio page that takes 4–5 seconds to render its hero image is a bio page most visitors never see in full.

Three key optimization steps

1. Use image compression software.
2. Resize your images.
3. Choose the right file format.

The three steps stack — applying all of them gets you the biggest reduction in file size without visible quality loss.

1. Use image compression software

Compression software analyzes the image and removes data that the human eye doesn't really notice (small variations in similar-colored regions, redundant metadata, etc.). The original image looks identical to most viewers but is dramatically smaller — often 50 to 80% smaller, sometimes more. See the recommended online tools below.

2. Resize your images

Resizing reduces file size when preparing images for web use by selecting appropriate dimensions and cropping or scaling before upload. A 4000×3000 photo from your phone has roughly 16× more pixels than a 1000×750 photo, and the file is roughly 16× bigger as a result. If your bio page displays the image at 600px wide, uploading a 4000px image is wasted bandwidth on every page view.

Resize to roughly the dimensions the image will be displayed at (or 2× for retina screens) before uploading. Most photo editors and the online tools below can do this in one click.

3. Choose the right file format

Different formats are optimized for different content. The two most relevant for bio pages are:

• JPEG is generally best for photos. Continuous tones, gradients and natural detail compress very well as JPEG. Save photographs as .jpg.
• PNG is a good choice for images with transparency — logos, icons, screenshots with sharp edges, anything that needs to sit cleanly on top of a colored background.

If a tool supports WebP, that's even better than JPEG for photos at the same visual quality, but JPEG is universally supported and a safe default.

Recommended online resizing tools

You don't need Photoshop — these three free tools cover 95% of cases. All run in the browser; no install required.

• imagecompressor.com — uses a smart combination of the best optimization and lossy compression algorithms to shrink JPEG, GIF and PNG images to the minimum possible size while keeping the required level of quality.
• iloveimg.com/compress-image — compress JPG, PNG, SVG or GIF with the best quality and compression. Lets you reduce a folder of images in batch and gives you control over how aggressive the compression is.
• tinypng.com — uses smart lossy compression techniques to reduce the file size of your WebP, JPEG and PNG files. By selectively decreasing the number of colors in the image, fewer bytes are required to store the data.

Pick the format, resize to the display size, then run the result through one of these compressors before uploading. Your bio page will paint visibly faster, especially on mobile networks.