Hello Friends,
I know you have read the title so describing that in this article I will elaborate 6 Reasons Why You Should need WebP Image Support for Magento 2. You can also check our previous blog How to Speed Up Your Magento Store With WebP for pro tips in increasing the speed of your Magento 2 store. Let’s Get Started.
Images are a strong component of the website and they can create a huge impact on the customer experience if you have not optimized it properly. Spend more time in tracking your website through Google PageSpeed Insights then you will observe that Google has made a significant change in preference of image formats. The introduction of WebP format has crossed a decade to eliminate the website loading speed problems.
As we all know that WebP image format is one of the best ways to increase the loading speed of your website. Large size images are the major cause for the slow loading speed of your website. This means you have to compress the images to decrease the image size. Many times due to lossy compression the image looks blurry. Hence for that purpose, Google introduced WebP Image Format.
Page speed is taken on a serious note by all the Magento stores because it is directly impacting the performance of your webstore. If a small change in loading speed occurs then it creates a big impact on the revenue of any Magento store.
6 Reason Why You Should need WebP Image Support for Magento 2:
WebP is “better” than PNG and JPG
It’s not sufficient that we say WebP is “better” than PNG and JPG. The main thing is to learn the mechanics and benefits of how WebP functions. Basically when any image format is the target when compression takes place then the result will be unsatisfied because the quality might get reduced.
Mainly, PNG and JPG compression leads to lossy and degrades the quality and clarity of the image. In the case of WebP compression Google says that the adjustment of pixels and Compression Techniques are accurate.
WebP Loads faster than PNG
The WebP image format is designed for replacing the PNG image format. The reason behind the WebP image loading faster than PNG is the PNG image size is larger than WebP.
Basically, WebP provides the below advantages over PNG:
- WebP offers the same transparency and quality even if the size is 26% reduced then the PNG
- WebP image loads faster than PNG Image because WebP file size is smaller than PNG.
WebP Offers 35% smaller file sizes
WebP image format provides an advantage in the file size up to 35% smaller than any other image format. WebP can be considered as one of the latest image formats that help all the website owners to reduce the image size of the website by modifying the quality of the image.
Basically, on average we can say that WebP shrinks 25-35% without reducing the transparency and quality of the image. This is the main reason when you track your website on Google PageSpeed Insights then major recommendations are to deliver the images of next-gen formats such as WebP image format.
WebP provides 100% compatibility with all Internet Browsers
Subsequently, when the WebP image format was launched the support of browsers and devices was of google only. After time passed other platforms have begun to give support for WebP image format.
The latest platforms that support WebP Image Format:
- Edge
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Opera
- Opera Mini
- Android Browser
- Opera Mobile
- Chrome for Android
- Firefox for Android
- UC Browser for Android
- Samsung Internet
- QQ Browser
- Baidu Browser
WebP supports compatibility with all major CMS platforms
I think all have queries of WebP format compatibility support with all major CMS platforms. CMS platforms such as Joomla, Magento, WordPress, or any other PHP framework supports WebP image format. Some platforms need third-party extensions and some of them need changes in the .htaccess file or Nginx config file for enabling the support of WebP Image Format.
Magento
Magento 2 WebP Images module is capable of providing support to the images by including the support of WebP file format images in your Magento 2 store.
The features include:
- Enhanced support of CMS page, Product page, and category page.
- The extension is compatible with multiple browsers.
- Improve the performance of your webstore.
- Boost the loading speed of your website.
WebP has better compression than an animated GIF
As we all know, the WebP image format supports lossy as well as lossless compression. The technical part says that WebP supports 24-bit RGB color with an 8-bit alpha channel and GIFs support 8-bit color and 1-bit alpha. Compared to GIF’s, WebP’s lossy compression methods are accurate. WebP needs fewer bytes than GIF. This makes the WebP better than an animated GIF
Wrap Up:
Hopefully, all are able to choose the right image format by learning the reasons and benefits of it. If you are in search of any module for the Magento 2 platform then have a look at my well-differentiated blog Best Magento 2 WebP Image extensions in 2022.
Comment down your views down in the comment section below.
Happy Reading.
