Image Optimization: Stop Serving 5MB JPEGs

Bandwidth is not free

Images are the easiest way to destroy your page speed. If you are serving massive, unoptimized JPEGs to mobile devices on 3G networks, you are losing users before the page even loads.

What you should be doing

• Use AVIF: It compresses significantly better than WebP. Use the `` tag to provide fallbacks for older browsers, but serve AVIF by default.
• Responsive `srcset`: There is zero reason to send a 2000px wide image to an iPhone. Let the browser pick the right size.
• Native Lazy Loading: Add `loading="lazy"` to every image below the fold. It takes two seconds to type and instantly cuts your initial payload.
• Priority Fetching: Add `fetchpriority="high"` to your hero image. Tell the browser to grab it immediately.

Automate this. Don't trust humans to compress images before uploading. Build it into your pipeline.