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The Benefits of Using WebP Image Format in Web Design

on 27 Nov 2023, by Bogdan, in Blog, Cloud, FREE, Guides

by Bogdan

Currently, websites that use WebP image files often showcase high-quality images that load quickly to their users. WebP is a fairly recent image format that was introduced by Google in 2010. Since then, it’s caught many people’s attention for its exceptionally smaller file size and image quality.

If you want the same image performance for your website with WebP, then this is the right place to be.

In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of using WebP image formats for your web design projects. We’ll cover the following:

What are WebP images
The key features of WebP images
The benefits of using WebP images when creating web design projects

First off, let’s get started with what WebP images are.

What are WebP images?

WebP is an open-source image format made by Google to make your images look great on the internet without taking up too much space. Google does this by compressing the images so they’re smaller in size but still high quality. You can know an image is a WebP file by the filename extension .webp at the end.

The term open-source means that anyone can download and contribute to its source code. But don't worry too much about that technical stuff. The important thing is that WebP makes your online images awesome and fast without using too much data.

Let’s look at the key features of WebP for a more in-depth understanding.

NOTE: WebP is a Next-Generation image format for raster images. We thought we should mention this because, as the name suggests, Next-Gen image formats are optimized for modern devices and applications. Everyone should serve them.

Lossless transparency

WebP images support lossless transparency (also known as alpha channel). Other formats like PNG files do too, but JPGs do not.

Transparency in WebP also adds less data than other formats, according to Google’s lossless and alpha study. In other words, you can say that WebP is a more efficient replacement for today's PNG image format. This is because the WebP image files are smaller even with transparency compared to PNGs.

NOTE: Some independent test results like that of Jim Nielsen found that lossless WebP files can sometimes be larger than their PNG equivalent when optimized with the ImageOptim API.

Despite all of this, WebP lossless transparency is handy when you’re designing websites and visual content. It allows you to apply effects to your canvas. Moreover, designers can highlight, create focus, and other advanced visual effects that give their design look professional and modern.

Animation

That’s not all. WebP also supports animated images, similar to the widely used GIFs. The main advantage of WebP-animated images over their equivalent GIF and APNG files lies in their file size. WebP-animated images are typically smaller in size.

Metadata

Metadata is simply additional information about camera settings, origin, location, copyright, color profiles, and other details that provide context or describe the content within the file. WebP lets you add metadata to your images using XML and EXIF. You can add relevant metadata to WebP images to help search engines identify images and boost your SEO.

Broad browser compatibility

Currently, WebP enjoys widespread browser support. According to Caniuse statistics, the browser support is approximately 96.88% and includes popular browsers like Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. Users will get the same experience with your images on different browsers.

For more information, you can read this documentation by Google to find out which version (mobile version included) supports WebP lossy, WebP lossy, lossless & alpha, and WebP animation.

Versatility

WebP images are versatile and can be used for a wide range of web content, including static images, animations, and interactive elements. This flexibility allows designers to explore creative ideas without worrying about compatibility issues.

With all these key features still fresh in our minds, let’s take a closer look at the main benefits of using WebP images.

The benefits of using WebP images when creating web projects

Here are some of the major benefits of using WebP images when creating web projects.

Using WebP images can make your site faster

WebP images are typically smaller in file size and require less data to be transmitted over the internet. In addition, reduced image sizes result in more lightweight web pages. A lightweight website is normally super-fast because the browser requires minimal resources to load the page content and showcase it to your users.

Improves user experience

WebP images can significantly enhance user experience on your website in the following ways:

Reduces waiting time. Since WebP images make websites load faster, users can access website content swiftly without delays. This is essential if you want your users to find the information they need promptly.

WebP images also provide high-quality images. Business owners can leverage WebP images on their web design projects to create positive first impressions with their users. This is because research shows that first impressions of a website are 94% design-related.

So, if your website isn’t professionally appealing, users won’t stay long on your site.

If you sell or offer free downloadable images, you can use WebP to ensure that your users can quickly download and save images on their devices.
And more.

Notably, using fast-loading WebP images can lower your bouncing rates by 123%. How does that sound? Ultimately, integrating WebP images into your web design leads to higher user satisfaction and engagement by making your websites faster, more accessible, visually appealing, and interactive.

Smaller WebP files can help you save storage space

WebP image files are smaller, meaning they take up less storage space on your server. This is crucial because the less space your image files occupy, the more room you have for other essential elements like themes, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and databases.

With limited server space, especially on web hosting services that charge based on storage usage, optimizing image size with WebP can save you money. This will allow you to efficiently manage all aspects of your website without overspending on storage costs.

WebP images can boost your SEO

WebP images partly contribute to higher search engine rankings by making your site load fast. Fast-loading websites are usually favored by search engines. Additionally, the metadata on WebP images enables search engines to easily display rich, extra information in search engine result pages. This will result in increased visibility and attracting more visitors to your site.

That being said, let’s take a quick look at other popular images you can use for your website design projects.

Other image formats you can use on your websites

When it comes to web design projects, you’re only limited to WebP images (It’s fairly recent). There are other image formats you can use depending on your specific requirements such as content strategy, the CMS you use, the browser you want to support, the characteristics of your images, etc.

If you don’t want to add next-generation images yet but still want to find the best balance between performance and quality, you can use the following image formats:

JPG – The main use case for JPEG files is web images when you want to showcase high-quality digital photos packed with detail and color. However, the photos are usually large-sized.
PNG – for images with transparency, sharp edges, and text, even if it results in a larger file size.

Image Credit: PNGEgg

GIF – for simple cartoon-style animations, logos, and images with a limited color palette and transparency needs.
SVG – for icons, vector logos, illustrations with less complexity, text-heavy images, background patterns, and animations

Some plugins like Brizy use "Glossy" compression to achieve a middle ground between lossy and lossless compression. Let’s examine this further.

Use Brizy to optimize images on your website

Brizy is a content management system (CMS) that integrates seamlessly with Shortpixel to optimize your Brizy images.

Our builder converts automatically the images you upload into WebP for a better optimisation, so you won't need to do the extra work. Everything is seamless when using JPG, PNG or other type of raster files.

This integration will make your pages load lightning-fast, increase the number of page visits, and offer a pleasant user experience – the benefits we've just discussed in the previous section and much more!

For more information on how this works, watch this video tutorial:

Conclusion

Using WebP images offers a lot of opportunities that can help you streamline your design projects. You will be able to use high-quality images that load quickly on websites and engage your users as soon as possible. Using plugins like Brizy enables you to add optimized WebP images to create stunning websites that create positive first impressions.

Article by Bogdan

Co-founder & Head of Design, Bogdan has a passion for everything that works great and looks awesome. Guilty for most of the UI and UX around this place, you can say "Hi" to him at bogdan at brizy dot io