Optimise Images and Media: Make Your Website Look More Professional
Want your website to look professional? Optimised images are the key! Blurry or slowly loading media deters visitors and can increase the bounce rate. With modern formats like WebP or AVIF, a clear visual language and well-thought-out compression, you improve loading times and visual quality. This enhances not only the user experience but also your visibility on Google.
Quick Tips:
- Reduce image size: With tools like TinyPNG, up to 80% smaller files without visible quality loss.
- Use modern formats: WebP files are 25-35% smaller than JPEG.
- Add alt texts: For better accessibility and SEO.
- Optimise mobile view: Adapt images and videos to smaller screens.
Use these approaches to make your website more efficient, faster and more appealing.
Selecting High-Quality Images and Videos for Your Website
Images and videos play a central role in building trust and positively influencing purchasing decisions. As Claus Pescha, Web Designer at network.design, aptly says:
"A picture is worth a thousand words. Even a bad one!"
Quality Standards for Professional Media
To ensure your media make the desired impression, they should meet certain technical requirements. Original images should be at least 6,000 x 4,000 pixels. For the website, the following guidelines apply:
- Full-screen images: approx. 2,000 px wide
- Blog post images: 1,200 x 800 px
- Paragraph images: approx. 600 x 400 px
Beyond the technical aspects, the emotional impact also counts. Images should immediately establish a connection and convey the desired mood of your company -- whether clarity, warmth or innovation. A clear image structure, harmonious perspectives and dynamic elements can draw the viewer into your content.
Since approximately half of users browse on mobile devices, your media must look good on all screen sizes -- from large monitors to smartphones. Avoid overly complex collages, as they often lose their impact on small displays.
Authenticity beats stock photos: Particularly for Austrian craft businesses or manufacturing companies, real photographs of premises, production sites or team members are a major plus. They convey credibility and trust. An example: for projects such as web design for doctors in Carinthia, we place particular emphasis on an authentic and professional presentation.
Consistency is also crucial for employee portraits. Brief your photographer precisely about the desired mood (e.g. clarity or warmth) and ensure even lighting and an appropriate background. Discuss technical details such as image formats and resolution in advance with your web designer. As a web design agency in Villach, we rely on clear guidelines to achieve optimal results.
Finding and Using Images Legally
Stock photo platforms can be a quick solution for supplementary content. Recommended sources include:
- Unsplash: Artistic, free images (with attribution)
- AdobeStock, iStock, Shutterstock: Extensive databases
- Wix Media Library: Free images and videos directly in the Media Manager
For Austrian businesses, copyright compliance is particularly important. Check whether the author must be credited (e.g. with Unsplash) and whether the licence also applies to digital use. When using free online compression tools, ensure that your files do not unintentionally become accessible to third parties.
For central content such as team photos, premises or products, individual photography is always recommended to ensure a credible presentation.
Format Tips:
- SVG: For logos and icons -- lossless scalability
- WebP: For photos -- 25 to 35% smaller file size with equal quality
- PNG: For graphics with transparency
- JPEG: For general photography
With these foundations, you focus on quality and legally compliant use of media. In the next section, you will learn how to further optimise file sizes.
Quick Win: Plan your next photo shoot with a clear checklist: define the desired mood, the technical resolution (at least 6,000 x 4,000 px) and the perspectives. This saves time and guarantees results that impress.
Reducing File Sizes for Faster Loading Times
Fast loading times are indispensable nowadays. When a website loads slowly, it often leads to visitor frustration and a higher bounce rate. Optimised images, however, can significantly reduce page loading time, which not only improves the user experience but can also boost engagement and positively influence Google ranking. A better Google Lighthouse score is an additional benefit resulting from optimised performance.
Thanks to modern techniques, image quality is maintained even on high-DPI devices, while loading times remain short. This is particularly important for mobile users, who are often on the go with slower internet connections. As a web design agency in Villach, we are committed to ensuring that Austrian SMEs benefit from these advantages. Below, we show how tools like Wix and TinyPNG can help you efficiently optimise your media.
Image Compression Tools for Wix
Wix significantly simplifies image optimisation by automatically compressing images on upload, responsively scaling them and converting them to modern formats like WebP or AVIF. AVIF files are approximately 50% smaller than WebP, while WebP files are 25 to 35% smaller than JPEG or PNG -- with comparable quality. These automatic processes save time and ensure better website performance.
For files larger than 25 MB, manual compression beforehand is necessary. TinyPNG is excellently suited for this. This tool can reduce file size by up to 80% without visibly affecting image quality. TinyPNG offers a free version for up to 20 images (each maximum 5 MB) as well as paid subscriptions for unlimited use.
Additionally, Wix uses techniques like lazy loading and low-quality image placeholders to improve perceived loading speed. For logos and icons, SVG files are recommended, as they are particularly lightweight, load quickly and remain crisp regardless of size.
Video Optimisation for Better Performance
Videos can also significantly affect a website's loading times if not optimised. To ensure better performance, using Wix VideoBox or Wix Video instead of external players like YouTube or Vimeo is recommended. Embedded iFrames from external providers are not optimised by Wix.
Heavy media such as videos or large image galleries should be placed "below the fold" wherever possible, i.e. outside the immediately visible area. This way, critical content like call-to-actions can be loaded first. For extensive galleries, a "Load More" button can help minimise initial loading time.
Tip: Upload images at a resolution of at least 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. Wix then handles the automatic scaling and compression to ensure optimal performance.
Maintaining Brand Identity Through Media Consistency
A consistent visual language plays a crucial role in winning customer trust and making your brand recognisable. If your website shows different image styles, colours or filters on each page, this not only looks unprofessional but can also confuse potential customers. According to the System1 Group, consistent brand campaigns increase "very large brand effects" such as brand awareness by 27%. Additionally, companies with consistent branding report twice the profit increases compared to less consistent competitors.
As a web design agency in Villach, we know that Austrian SMEs in particular often work with limited resources. That is precisely why it is crucial that every image, every video and every icon reflects your brand values. With the right tools and clear guidelines, this consistency can be achieved without great effort. Here you will learn how to specifically adapt your media to your brand identity.
Adapting Media to Your Brand Identity
The Wix Media Manager is a practical tool for centrally storing all approved media -- from logos to product photos to background images. This prevents different logo versions or colour variants from appearing on different pages of your website.
With the built-in image editor, you can uniformly adjust filters, crops and sizes. If, for example, you prefer a bright and airy style for your blog posts, your product galleries should also reflect this style. Adi Huri, Creative Product Manager at Wix, explains:
"Our imagery is not meant to be just a technical description for visitors - it plays an important role in setting the vibe of your site".
For logos and icons, the SVG format is recommended, as these files can be scaled without quality loss and remain crisp on all screen sizes.
Practical tip: Define your colour palette with exact HEX codes (e.g. #1A2B3C) and use these consistently for all graphic elements. Wix also offers thousands of customisable illustrations and icons whose colour, opacity and size you can individually adapt to your brand colours.
A systematically created media style guide helps you maintain this consistency long-term.
Creating a Media Style Guide
A media style guide is an indispensable tool for avoiding chaos and making your brand look professional. Stuart L. Crawford, Creative Director at Inkbot Design, describes it thus:
"A branding kit is the system that stops this chaos. It's not a vague idea; it's a technical toolkit... that make your brand look professional, every single time".
Your style guide should cover all important elements, such as logo variants, minimum sizes and clear guidelines for avoiding distortions or colour deviations. Also document your colour hierarchy according to the 60/30/10 rule: 60% primary colour, 30% secondary colour and 10% neutral tones. For each colour, specify the codes for web (HEX), digital documents (RGB) and print (CMYK/Pantone).
Typography rules for headings (H1-H4) and body texts should also be established in the style guide, including font size, weight and line spacing. For image selection, it is advisable to define the desired style, e.g. bright and airy or dark and atmospheric. Examples of "good" and "bad" image selection can help avoid misunderstandings.
Particularly for industries that require a high degree of trust and seriousness -- such as web design for doctors -- such a guide is indispensable. Here, visual language, colour choice and typography should be specifically oriented towards competence and reliability.
Brand ElementPurposeImplementation in WixLogo (SVG)Scalability and sharpnessUpload in Media Manager; use in header/footerColour paletteConsistent visual identityDocument HEX codes in style guideTypographyReadability and recognitionMaximum five font variants per pageAlt textAccessibility and SEOInsert descriptive, brand-relevant textsFilters/EffectsConsistent lookApply uniform filters in the Wix Photo Editor
Quick Win: Create pre-made social media templates with your brand colours and fonts directly in Wix. This ensures that your content on platforms like Facebook or WhatsApp reflects your brand identity.
Tools and Features for Austrian Businesses on Wix
Wix offers the ability to create professional websites without deep IT knowledge. As a web design agency in Villach, we use this platform daily to provide Austrian SMEs with technically optimised, appealing and fast-loading websites. Many technical optimisations happen automatically, so you do not need to worry about every detail. Below, we show how these features can sustainably improve your website's performance.
Wix Features for Media Optimisation
In addition to automatic image compression, Wix offers further features to ensure your content is optimally displayed. Uploaded images are automatically converted to modern formats like AVIF or WebP. These formats are significantly more efficient -- AVIF files are up to 50% smaller than WebP and WebP in turn 25-35% smaller than JPEG or PNG files. Adi Huri, Creative Product Manager at Wix, describes this approach:
"We always have performance in mind... We will optimize it to the exact dimension displayed on screen, without any loss of quality".
The Wix Pro Gallery allows you to individually control image quality (recommended: quality setting up to 90). For videos, the platform offers integrated hosting options with Wix Video and the VideoBox, which ensure better performance than external iFrames. For logos and icons, SVG files are ideal, as they are lightweight, can be scaled without quality loss and are displayed crisply on all devices.
FeatureUse CasePerformance BenefitAVIF conversionStandard photography50% smaller than WebPWix VideoProduct videos/tutorialsIntegrated optimisationVector graphics (SVG)Logos and iconsMinimal file sizeLazy loadingLong scroll pagesLoads images only when neededVideoBoxDecorative animationsBetter performance
Practical tip: With the Wixel AI Suite, you can edit, scale or even recreate images directly in Wix -- without additional software.
Support from Welle West Webdesign for Austrian SMEs
Many companies in Austria offer excellent products or services but often do not have the resources to deal intensively with technical details. This is where we come in: in addition to the automated functions of Wix, we support you in using them optimally. We take care of the professional implementation of all media optimisations so that your website not only looks visually convincing but also loads quickly and is found better in search engines.
Our services include, among other things, setting up the Wix Media Manager with a clear folder structure, implementing lazy loading for image galleries and adapting the mobile view via the Wix Mobile Editor. Here, for example, we remove heavy content or reduce the number of gallery images specifically for mobile devices. Additionally, we create descriptive alt texts that are important for both search engine optimisation and accessibility.
Quick Win: Let us analyse your website with the Wix Site Speed Dashboard. This allows us to identify large media elements and optimise them specifically to improve your Core Web Vitals -- and thereby also your position in Google search results.
Summary and Next Steps
Optimised images and media are crucial for a fast, professional and well-visible website. Three central areas are in focus: Format and quality, File size (ideally under 1 MB, larger files should be manually compressed) and Strategic placement.
Although Wix performs many optimisations automatically -- such as with modern formats and lazy loading -- your manual preparation remains indispensable. This includes descriptive file names and meaningful alt texts to improve the structure of your media. We support Austrian SMEs in professionally implementing these measures -- from technical analysis to ongoing support.
Your next steps: Analyse your website with the Wix Site Speed Dashboard or Google PageSpeed Insights to identify large media files. Compress these specifically and optimise the mobile view with the Wix Mobile Editor. Particularly in areas where trust and seriousness are essential -- such as web design for doctors -- a well-thought-out media optimisation ensures a professional and credible appearance.
Start now: optimise your website and boost performance and credibility. Contact us for a free performance analysis. We identify optimisation potential and implement it at fixed prices from EUR 599 -- with personal support directly in Austria.