Boost Your SEO: How Image Compression Improves Core Web Vitals

November 27, 2025

If you’re trying to rank higher on Google, you’ve probably heard of Core Web Vitals. These are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage’s overall user experience. Among them, Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is often the hardest to optimize—and unoptimized images are usually the culprit.

In this post, we’ll explore how simple image compression can drastically improve your LCP score, boost your page speed, and ultimately help your SEO rankings.

What is Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)?

LCP measures how long it takes for the main content of a page to load. For many websites, the “main content” is a hero image, a product photo, or a banner.

• Good LCP: 2.5 seconds or less
• Needs Improvement: 2.5s to 4.0s
• Poor: More than 4.0s

If your hero image is 2MB, it will take significant time to download, especially on mobile networks. This delays the LCP trigger, telling Google your site is slow.

The Impact of Large Images on SEO

Google has explicitly stated that page experience is a ranking factor. Slow sites frustrate users, leading to higher bounce rates.

1. Slower Load Times: Large files clog the bandwidth.
2. Wasted Crawl Budget: Search engines spend more resources crawling heavy pages.
3. Poor Mobile Experience: Mobile users often have unstable connections; heavy images make sites unusable for them.

How MiniJPG Helps You Score Higher

You don’t need to be a coding wizard to fix this. The most effective solution is often the simplest: reduce your image file sizes.

Using a tool like MiniJPG, you can often reduce image size by 70-80% without noticeable quality loss.

A Real-World Example

Imagine a travel blog post with a 3MB header image.

• Before Optimization:

  • File Size: 3.2 MB
  • Load Time (3G): ~12 seconds
  • LCP Score: Poor

• After MiniJPG Compression:

  • File Size: 450 KB (WebP or optimized JPEG)
  • Load Time (3G): ~2 seconds
  • LCP Score: Good

That single change can move a page from the “Poor” bucket to the “Good” bucket in Google Search Console.

3 Steps to Optimize Images for SEO

1. Identify Heavy Images: Use PageSpeed Insights to find images that are slowing you down.
2. Compress Locally: Drag and drop them into MiniJPG. Since it works offline in your browser, it’s instant and private.
3. Replace and Re-test: Upload the new, lighter images to your site and run the audit again. You should see an immediate green boost in your performance score.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t just about keywords; it’s about technical performance. By keeping your images lean, you ensure your content loads instantly, keeping both users and search engines happy. Don’t let heavy JPEGs weigh down your rankings—compress them today.