If you’re still using the JPG image format, it’s not exactly a big mistake, but you should know it’s no longer state-of-the-art. Some time ago, a new format called WebP outpaced it by a long shot and now a new format has become widespread that you should adopt right away: the AVIF image format.
Is it that urgent? Yes, right away. The reasons are that AVIF provides smaller file sizes—meaning stronger compression—and, on top of that, better quality. And to crown it all, it is already supported by the vast majority of browsers, specifically 94.33% of them, according to Can I Use.
Greater compression, a broader colour palette and, on top of that, it’s an open-source initiative. Adoption is now practically unanimous and it has already been endorsed by Google, WordPress, Joomla, Cloudflare, and the rest of the major players on the Internet.
As for certain features like transparent backgrounds or animations, it’s worth noting that AVIF also covers these, allowing them with even greater compression.
Saving a few kilobytes of image size may not seem like much, but it might be the boost your content needs to gain that crucial fraction of a second to outrank a competitor in search results. You never know. But if that’s not enough reason, we can always play the sustainability card, since lighter images mean a smaller environmental footprint.
AVIF format, a reliable CDN, and lazy loading, among several other factors, can be the winning combination for excelling in Google’s Core Web Vitals.
Remember that you don’t need a complex image editing program, as there are online tools that can easily resize, convert to AVIF, and adjust quality. While many exist, our favourite is Squoosh.app.
Nothing is stopping you from starting to use this format. It’s not all advantages, as it does require slightly more processing power to encode, but this is hardly significant when you consider all the benefits mentioned.”
* Original article written in Spanish, translated with chatGPT and reviewed in English by Jorge Mediavilla.
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