If you're doing Google SEO in 2025, you must use the WebP image format!
Google really dislikes slow-loading pages across the entire web. It hopes that websites can make improvements in all possible aspects to reduce loading time, and the speed is measured in milliseconds because fast loading and access can bring a better user experience. Core Web Vitals and data from all pages are part of this plan, and every aspect of the basic structure of web pages needs to be considered (friends who operate websites should pay attention to this).
One of the main reasons for slow loading may be poorly optimized images. "Optimization" is more than just adding alt text; it also requires providing multiple responsive options, including file extensions and sizes suitable for users.
This is where WebP image optimization comes into play, and its advantages over JPG, PNG, and GIF are immediately obvious.
What is WebP?
WebP was invented by Google with the aim of replacing file formats like JPEG and PNG. It provides faster loading speeds while maintaining the following features:
- Image compression (both lossy and lossless)
- Animation capabilities
- Transparency
If you want to increase your sales and revenue, you should start using WebP format images right away. Why? Because improved search engine performance can lead to better rankings, more traffic, more customers, and higher sales.
WebP vs. PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG
Yes, PNG images are the most visually striking, but they take the longest time to load in web browsers, so they perform the worst in search results. JPEG images are much better and perform far better than PNG on web pages. However, when a JPEG image is converted to WebP, its size can be reduced by 26-30%, and if a PNG is a transparent image, its size can be reduced to one-third of the original.
Let's take a look at Google's tests. Yes, it's definitely worth your immediate attention. Check out the following table to compare these file extensions; |
WebPJPEGPNGGIFSVG | |||||
Lossy compression | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Lossless compression | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Transparency | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | Binary | ✔️ |
Animation | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Vector | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Preferred by Google for SEO | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |