Optimize your WordPress Media library – Load Images Faster

We all know that when a website crawls…. we aren’t going to wait around. All too quickly we give up and click away.

My last post was about how to test your page speed and improve your WordPress site’s page speed. I was pleased with the results I achieved but since then I’ve learned that when running WordPress website you have to be continually vigilant. Adding a new plugin and especially adding new images can drastically change the way your site performs.

Recently I started replacing all the old images in my blogs with new Pinnable images created with Canva and yikes the site started to crawl. All my Canva creations had to be optimized for the web one by one with Photoshop. But then I found a better and faster way – no Photoshop required.

Easily Optimize Images for the Web

Kraken is a robust, ultra-fast image optimizer and compressor.  The Kraken WordPress Plugin will optimize your entire Media library and improve your website performance.  The plugin requires a paid subscription but pricing starts at just $5 per month and I think you’ll find the improved site performance and convenience of the plugin worth it. There is also an online web interface. You can upload a single image or an entire web page.

Online Web Interface

Before uploading an image to the WordPress Media Library you can optimize your image with the Kraken Web Interface.  Optimizing images will dramatically improve your website’s load times.

1. Save your beautiful Canva designs to a folder on your computer
2. Go to Kraken and upload the image
3. Save the optimized image to a new folder for optimized images.  When saving give the file a keyword rich name that isn’t too long. Use hyphens instead of spaces in the file name.
4. Now go to your blog post and click Add Media.  Browse your computer for the optimized version and insert it into your post.

Try it for free. All plans start out as a FREE Account which comes with 50 MB of testing quota. No credit card is required to sign up. After that you can continue to use Kraken’s Web Interface is always free for images up to 1MB in size.

To use the Kraken Plugin for WordPress you will need a paid account.

Optimize your entire WordPress Media Library with the Kraken Plugin for WordPress

The Kraken plugin will optimize your WordPress Media library!  All images uploaded through the media uploader are optimized on-the-fly. All generated thumbnails are optimized too.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Optimize your #WordPress Media library for the web to accelerate your website pic.twitter.com/HXoUpiBaQv” quote=”Optimize your #WordPress Media library for the web to accelerate your website”]

1. To use the plugin you need to register for a paid account on Kraken – try the $5/month Micro Plan to get you started.  You will be able to optimize 500 MB of images per month, each additional GB is charged at $5. If you have an existing site with a large media library you’ll want to start higher. You can cancel your account, downgrade, or upgrade at any time.
2. Verify your account by clicking on the verification link contained in the email.
3. Install the Kraken Plugin: Go to Plugins-> Add New -> Search for Kraken Image Optimizer-> Install and Activate the Plugin
4. Go to Settings -> Media -> to add the API information.  You can copy this information from your Kraken account API Credentials tab.
5. Any images you upload from now on using WordPress’s Media Upload will be optimized according to your settings. Auto-generated thumbnails will also be optimized.
6. Images already uploaded can be optimized from within the Media Library.  Go to Media -> Library.  Switch from the Thumbnail view to the List View.  You can click to optimize images one at a time or select all images -> change Bulk Images to Krak’em all and click Apply and then repeat this step for additional pages.

Optimized images will remain optimized even if you remove the plugin. “All optimization is carried out by sending images to Kraken.io’s infrastructure, and pulling the optimized files to your WordPress installation.” Kraken replaces the image in the media library with the optimized version.

I highly recommend Kraken to students and clients. Please let me know, has Kraken made a difference for your website performance?

Disclosure: This page contains external affiliate links, I will receive a small commission if you choose to buy the product. I will only promote products that I believe in. The opinions on this page are my own. I do not receive payment for positive reviews.