{"id":3484357,"date":"2021-06-14T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/?p=3484357"},"modified":"2024-06-04T16:34:13","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T14:34:13","slug":"best-lazy-load-plugins-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/blog\/best-lazy-load-plugins-wordpress\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7 Best Lazy Load Plugins for WordPress (Free + Paid)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Images and videos are a must-have for every WordPress site today. It\u2019s hard to imagine a website without marketing banners, product images, logos, galleries, or even video tutorials. Unfortunately, images and videos can be heavy, making them the biggest contributors to the page size.<\/p>

The question is: how to make sure that our web pages load fast even if we use many images and videos? Using a lazy loading plugin is one of the solutions to optimize the speed of your website. There are free lazy load plugins available, such as Lazy Load by WP Rocket, which supports various image formats and improves loading speeds. As we wrote in an in-depth article about lazy loading for WordPress<\/a>, the lazy load script loads the images and videos only when the user reaches that section (and not before that).<\/p>

In this guide, you\u2019ll learn what the lazy Load script is, and you\u2019ll get to know the 7 best lazy loading plugins that can help improve your site performance.<\/p>

Why You Should Choose a Lazy Load Plugin<\/h2>

Let\u2019s start from the basics.<\/p>

Lazy loading is an optimization technique that loads the content visible but postpones the rendering of the content that you can see below the fold. It\u2019s mainly applied to off-screen images or videos, which are not loaded until they are needed. WordPress lazy load plugins help achieve this by delaying the loading of images and media on a webpage until they become visible in the user’s viewport, thereby reducing page loading times, saving bandwidth, and improving site performance.<\/p>

Lazy loading is an easy way to optimize page speed<\/a> and improve the end-user experience as it avoids unnecessary resource downloads or code execution.<\/p>

\"Above
Above the fold vs. below the fold
<\/figcaption><\/figure>


For example, if a page has an image that the visitor has to scroll to see, then you can lazy load the full image and display it only<\/strong> when the user arrives at the location.<\/p>

The truth is, you don\u2019t need to monopolize all the system resources to load all the pictures and videos of your website at the same time. Why use resources to load something that is not currently being viewed and slows down your site?<\/p>

\ud83d\udcd6 With lazy loading, videos aren’t loaded, and pictures aren’t downloaded until needed. This way, site performance is boosted, especially for websites with several embedded videos and high-resolution pictures.  <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>

Do you need lazy loading?<\/h3>

You should consider using lazy load if the pages and posts you use have several high-resolution pictures and embedded videos. In short, lazy loading reduces the visitor calls on the server of your website, seeing as you are telling the media to be loaded only when the visitors have them on its screen. <\/p>

To identify if the implementation of lazy loading is critical for your website, testing your WordPress site\u2019s performance<\/a> may be very helpful. <\/p>

Let\u2019s say that you have a news website with quite a lot of high-resolution images. You decide to run a performance audit on Google PageSpeed Insights. In the Lighthouse report, you find out a few image-related issues that are slowing down your site. How? If you pay attention to the Opportunities<\/strong> section below, you’ll see the \u201cDefer offscreen images<\/a>\u201d recommendation.
<\/p>

\"\"
Opportunity section from PSI<\/em>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Lazy loading can help improve performance<\/h3>

As explained previously, lazy loading reduces load times, and we all know that a fast website improves the user experience<\/a>. Before you start to implement the lazy load script, here\u2019s a list of the benefits on your webpage speed: <\/p>