Image by Xavier Turpain from Pixabay

QR code image quality refers to the clarity and readability of a code when digitally represented or printed. Poor image quality will make a code appear blurry, pixelated, overly complicated, and prone to scanning errors that drive users crazy.

For businesses, this means missed opportunities to engage customers. A low-quality QR code could fail to direct users to your website, product, or service. Whether you’re sharing your website link or promoting a product, maintaining QR code quality is non-negotiable for success.

Moreover, embedding logos or custom branding QR codes increases the importance of image optimization. Unoptimized images make QR codes harder to scan, defeating the purpose of having them in the first place.

Common Problems Caused by Poor QR Code Image Quality

Let‘s dive into the most common issues caused by low-quality QR codes and unoptimized images:

1. Blurred or Pixelated QR Codes
Blurry or pixelated QR codes can be due to poor resizing or low-resolution designs. Sometimes, if your QR code is stretched beyond its original size without proper optimization, its scannability can suffer.

2. Excessive Complexity
These, unless the images are optimized, result in a too-cluttered look of the QR codes. Scanners can get confused and find it very hard to read.

3. Low Contrast
If the contrast between the QR code and its background is too low, then cameras may find it hard to detect the presence of the code. Better image quality ensures better readability and usability.

4. Unreadable Printed Codes
If your QR code is for print, poor image optimization can result in unreadable designs upon scaling down. This often happens when images are not prepared properly for printing.

How to Optimize QR Code Image Quality

Just a few best practices to keep your QR code perfect, working, and under your brand:

1. Use High-Resolution Images
For the embedding of logos or custom designs, high-resolution images should be used always. The quality of the QR code as a whole goes down due to the use of low-sized or pixelated logos.

Tip: Wherever possible, use vector images such as SVG files for logos because they can be scaled perfectly without losing their quality.

2. Optimize the Logo or Image
Before embedding an image into your QR code, optimize the image by reducing its size and simplifying the design. In addition, image compressors can assure clarity without compromising quality.

Hint: Tools like TinyPNG or your website’s built-in image optimization service can get images compressed for embedding onto a QR code effectively.

3. Maintain Proper Margins and Quiet Zones
Every QR code needs a “quiet zone”-a free area around the edges that helps scanners detect it. Ensure that no logos or images spill over into these areas, as that could interfere with scannability.

4. Test Your QR Code Before Use
After creating your QR code, test it across multiple devices to ensure it works. This helps you identify issues with image quality or scannability early.

Why Branded QR Codes Require Extra Attention to Image Quality

Branded QR codes have become a popular way to make a business stand out and reinforce its identity. You can embed your logo or customize the design to create a memorable, professional look that’s in line with your brand. However, this requires extra attention to image quality.
Here’s why:

• Custom Designs Are More Complex: Branded QR code generator often involve intricate patterns or colors, which can interfere with scannability if not optimized properly.
• Logos Can Hide the Code: A logo that is too big or not well-placed may hide important parts of the QR code and render it unreadable.
• Attractive Designs Engage More Users: Professionally designed QR codes make a better first impression and are likely to be used more.
• You will be able to easily make and customize a QR code, professional and of the best image quality, with a proper tool like OpenQR.io. Providing the possibility to change colors, embed logos, and test designs, OpenQR.io will ensure that your QR code is both stylish and completely working.

The Role of Image Optimization in QR Code Success

Image optimization is the process of preparing images so they are visually clear and load quickly while maintaining their quality. This process is vital for QR codes, especially when embedding logos or branding elements.

Benefits of Image Optimization for QR Codes:

1. Improved Scannability: Optimized images ensure that the QR code remains functional, even with custom designs.
2. Faster Load Times: When QR codes are displayed digitally (e.g., on websites), optimized images load faster, providing a seamless experience.
3. Better Printing Results: Optimized images prevent pixelation or blurriness when QR codes are printed at different sizes.

Using an image optimization service alongside a QR code generator helps businesses achieve the best results. You can optimize images for web and print, ensuring your QR codes work flawlessly in any medium.

How OpenQR.io Simplifies the Process

Creating high-quality, branded QR codes doesn’t have to be complicated. OpenQR.io offers an easy-to-use platform where you can:

• Generate custom-branded QR codes.
• Embed optimized logos or images seamlessly.
• Choose colors and styles that match your brand.
• Test your QR codes for scannability before finalizing them.

With OpenQR.io, you can ensure your QR codes meet the highest standards of image quality and functionality.

Conclusion

Image quality plays a very important role in the success of QR codes right from design to the actual scanning by the user. By focusing on proper optimization, businesses can create QR codes that look nice, but also very reliable and effective.

Whether it be embedding logos or changing colors, image optimization services and OpenQR.io make the process seamless and efficient. By paying extra attention to QR code image quality, you ensure that your codes work seamlessly every time they are scanned.

Optimize your QR codes now and experience the difference it can make in performance and engagement!

The post What is QR Code Image Quality, and Why Does It Matter? appeared first on CheetahO.

If you tried and explored more CheetahO WordPress plugin, perhaps noticed that from version 1.5 we have a new feature: Exclude images using patterns. This new feature allows our users to specify which files or folders are omitted from the image optimization process.

For some plugin users, this feature can look not understanding how to use it. So we will try to explain how it works in this article and show a few examples of how it works. 

What can this feature exclude?

This feature can exclude images from being optimized, based on patterns. A file will be not optimized if it matches any of the patterns.
Few patterns can be separated by a comma. A pattern consists of a type:value pair. Supported types are: name, path
For a “name” patter only the file name will be matched, but for the “path” all the path will be matched.
If a pattern will start with “/” and is valid it will be considered as a regex. You can also use regular expressions accepted by preg_match, but without “,” or “:”.

How to exclude image by filename?

This can be done by using the name type pattern.

For example, you want to exclude a file with the name demo.jpg from optimization. What you need to do is to add this pattern in the Exclude images using patterns field like this:

name:demo.jpg

Let’s say you want to exclude all images – PNG/JPEG/GIF.  A small change to the pattern will do a trick:

name:demo

How to exclude a specific folder?

To do this use path type pattern to exclude folders/subfolders

All the path will be matched (useful for excluding certain subdirectories altogether). For these, you can also use regular expressions accepted by preg_match, but without “,” or “:”.

How to use regular expressions?

The regular expressions can help you set different exclude patterns. Here are just a few examples that will show their power:

All images from 2016: path:/\/2016\//

All PNG images that have a numeric prefix: path:/[0-9]+[^\/]*\.(PNG|png)/

All images that contain cheetaho in the name and are from 2020: /\/2020\/.*cheetaho[^\/]*/

Some other tips for using this feature

• Images optimization in the WordPress plugin will stop if the rule will match any of the patterns.
• It is possible to use multiple patterns and can be separated by a comma.
• It’s possible to use regular expressions accepted by preg_match. A pattern will be used as a regex if it starts with a “/” and is valid.

We are suggesting to read more about regex here.

The post How to exclude images optimization in WordPress plugin appeared first on CheetahO.

So what is the Retina?

The Retina is an Apple marketing term for which there’s no concrete definition. Put simply, the Retina display is any screen Apple has decided to call that.
It’s actually just a marketing term. It simply means that the screen has sufficient pixel density and when you look at it normally, you can’t make out all the individual pixels. The images have an extremely crisp look as if they were printed. This is achieved by using double-resolution images instead of the usual size images for the same screen space.

Retina image on your website

Modern browsers support Retina screens and are able to serve different assets depending on the device screen density. Basically, you need to know that everything except images are rendered in retina resolution automatically. If your site relies heavily on CSS effects such as gradients, box-shadows, and borders you don’t need to optimize too much at all, apart from the images. To prepare images for Retina screen provide images with the double resolution on your website. Your images will look on a Retina display will look more shiny and crisp. See the example below:

How to create and optimize Retina images?

If you built your website with WordPress it’s easy! There are a lot of plugins which can generate double size image and adapt them to use in your website. For example, a plugin like WP Retina 2x automatically creates the Retina images and storing them alongside your usual images. New images can be identified by their specific @2x suffix. For example image name image@2x.jpg

Don’t forget that created double size images are also bigger and take more space on your hosting. The most important thing is that it also takes more time to be downloaded for users who are visiting your website.

That’s why we thought about this problem and added new functionality to our WordPress Image optimization plugin. This feature is not active by default and if you are using Retina images on your website we suggest to activate it on the CheetahO Settings page. CheetahO Image Optimization plugin will detect any existing Retina specific (@2x) images and optimize them too. The optimized image weight can be smaller up to 70%.

In conclusion, we recommend using Retina (double size) images on your website. It’s good for user experience and does not forget to optimize these images.

The post How to optimize retina images on your WordPress site appeared first on CheetahO.

And it’s easy to see why: when you have optimized images on your site, that means your website will be loading faster.

Site speed—especially mobile site speed—is a crucial factor in SEO, as Google and other search engines give priority to faster-loading pages. Besides that, it also creates a great user experience, meaning website visitors will be eager to come back.

In order to stand out from the rest of the many, many websites available (and springing up every day), you’ll need to use every tool in your arsenal to keep you better than the rest.

So let’s look at the 7 best image optimizer plugins for your WordPress website.

CheetahO image Optimizer

First up, we have the CheetahO WordPress image optimizer. This is an easy-to-install image optimizer for your WordPress blog or website.

It will allow you to resize and scale your images down to any size you’d like, helping you to optimize your WordPress image uploads. You can choose lossless or lossy image optimization, whichever option works best for your site.

Currently, CheetahO supports the following filetypes: JPEG, PNG, and GIF.

If you’re going to optimize up to 500 images per month, you can get CheetahO for free. Paid plans start at $4/month for up to 2,000 images.

Shortpixel Image Optimizer

Another top WordPress image optimizer, Shortpixel can help you optimize all the images on your site in no time.

In order to use it, you’ll need to receive their API key by email, and then you can start compressing your images as soon as the plugin is activated.

The compressed images are stored in a separate folder, allowing you to compare the original to the optimized versions.

You can get their basic, free account that allows you to compress 100 images each month.

reSmush.it image Optimizer

This WordPress image optimizer provides you with great features to help you improve your site speed while keeping your images crisp and clear.

It utilizes their reSmush API to help you optimize your images and determine what level of optimization you want for your uploads. On the other hand, however, it doesn’t offer varying compression levels, and images are also limited to 5MB in file size.

EWWW image Optimizer

This image optimizer is pretty great for your WordPress blog. Right after you install it, it’ll automatically optimize any images, as long as they’re in JPG, PNG or GIF.

If you want to optimizes previous images (say, from your Media Library), it also comes with a function to help you do that.

The optimization here happens locally, meaning everything is taking place on your own servers by default. This cuts down on the loading and processing speed. However, if you don’t have the appropriate permissions, you will have some difficulties setting the whole thing up.

WP SMUSH

This WordPress plugin is one of the bigger names in image optimization.

Here, you’ll get the standard optimization happening as soon as you activate the plugin, with the app running quietly in the background.

This plugin has a lot of features – depending on what you pay for. They have both free and premium options, and obviously the premium features are the best.

For example, you have the option to do bulk image optimization, but if you’re on their free plan, you are limited to 50 files at a time.

The plugin uses lossless optimization, but if you have the pro plan, you have the “Super-Smush” feature that can optimize each image multiple times with lossy compression.

Tiny PNG

What sets Tiny PNG apart from the rest of the plugins on this list is that they use only lossy compression methods, meaning you’ll get a huge reduction in file size while your images are kept at mostly the same quality.

Because of that, there aren’t a lot of configuration options in their Settings. You can still choose the image sizes, max resolutions, and so on, however.

It’s a good option when looking for the best WordPress image optimizer.

Imagify

Last, but not least, we have the Imagify WordPress image optimizer.

Even though it’s free, it still presents you with a wide range of options you can configure. You can begin with the optimization intensity – Normal, Aggressive (the recommended setting) and Ultra. Normal may not compress enough, while Ultra can end up blurring and decoloring your images.

All you need to do is get their API key and optimize your images: individually or in bulk.

Summing up
Getting the best WordPress image optimizer is a pretty important requirement that will help you to optimize your website in general.

Finding the perfect one for your website out of all the options available can seem like a task, however. Luckily, we’ve just sumarized the 7 best available on the internet that you can try out today.

We’d recommend you go ahead and see which one works best for your website, helping you optimize your images by decreasing their file size while maintaining their quality.

With that, you’ll not only have better SEO results, but you’ll also have much more satisfied visitors.

Good luck!

The post WordPress Image Optimizer: 7 best image Optimization Plugins appeared first on CheetahO.

The CheetahO team  has developed a new function which lets you keep image EXIF metadata. But first of all what is EXIF metadata? A photo’s EXIF metadata contains a lot of information about your camera and potentially where the picture was taken (GPS coordinates).

EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File Format. Every time you take a picture with your digital camera or phone, you create a file (typically a JPEG) on your device’s storage. In addition to all the bits dedicated to the real picture, it records a considerable amount of supplemental metadata as well. This can include date, time, camera settings, and possible copyright information. You can also add further metadata to EXIF, such as through photo processing software.

Finally, if you use a camera phone or digital camera with GPS capabilities, it can record EXIF geolocation metadata.

Viewing EXIF Data

When you take a photograph with your camera or phone, it records EXIF metadata, which you can later view in the image’s properties. A lot of this stuff is mundane and, in fact, you’re probably only concerned about the geolocation data.

You cannot stop EXIF metadata from being added to your photographs, though you can prevent geotagging by simply turning it off in your camera or camera app. If your photo already has geotagging – or if you want to remove all of its EXIF data – you can do so after the fact.

Keep image EXIF metadata

CheetahO reduces images size by compressing and removing all extra image data that doesn’t show visually (such as EXIF data). If you are a photographer the EXIF profile data can be very helpful and you want to keep it. For this purpose we created an option to keep EXIF data. We also updated our WordPress plugin. Now if you want to keep image EXIF metadata just choose this option: “Keep EXIF metadata”.

While we were developing this feature we created a few test to see how this EXIF data impact image size. We took 36644 kb images and optimized them with and without EXIF metadata. We saw that removing image  EXIF metadata save about 6% of disk space. So that’s why we recommend you remove this data if you aren’t planning on using it in your website.

The post How to keep image EXIF metadata while compressing image appeared first on CheetahO.

If you have a blog, there are chances that you already know that even good content without SEO optimization provides much less value. When you spend hours on preparing exciting articles, but not paying attention to optimizing them, you are simply wasting your time.

Here are 4 easy search engine optimization (SEO) tips to help get your blog noticed, that doesn’t demand specific skills to use them:

1. Pick effective keywords to write an SEO friendly blog post

A smart blogger always does keyword research before jumping into writing. The Google Adwords Keyword Tool allows you to find keywords related to your topic. After you check the keywords in the Keyword Tool, test them in Organic search as well. Sometimes keyword competition in Adwords is really high, but on organic search it is easy to become visible.

Google Trends can also lead you to the right direction providing the keywords that are popular at any given time. Keep in mind that searchers love very specific “long-tail” keywords, keyword phrases and questions when they are looking for something. So don’t forget that the most obvious keywords sometimes aren’t the best choice.

2. Spread keywords throughout your post

Creativity and rules aren’t best friends, but you should keep your content structured. Your blog post needs these elements:

• Title
• Headings and subheadings
• URL if possible
• Image alt text
• Meta description
• Throughout the content

Integrate your keywords naturally in all of these parts.

3. Images, images, images

Don’t forget that all images in your blog post need attention as well. Include keywords in the file name and fill out the alternate text field. Furthermore, all images should be optimized. You can do this with the click of one button with CheetahO WordPress image optimization tool or use the CheetahO API.

4. Promote your content in social networks

Social networks have a real power to reach the audience. Social accounts that are relevant to your blog will attract traffic to your blog. It is important to share other relevant information and not only your blog posts in these social media channels. You can also share some images and promote your upcoming blogpost to tease your followers. Keep your readers interested!

The post 4 steps how to write SEO friendly blog posts appeared first on CheetahO.

We have a few SEO tips for how you can improve your SEO ranking on Google and other search engines without any technical/development knowledge.

Definitely, the most important thing is content, but small SEO updates can easily increase your visibility and more readers will find your astonishing website. Technical and On-Page SEO requires sometimes advanced skills, but there are plenty of simple things you can do to increase your site’s chances of ranking real well.

1. Optimize internal links

Link your blog articles to your services pages, and your new blog to your previous one. Internal linking is very important not only for SEO but for an enhanced user experience. Important: link related pages together, not pages that have no related content at all.

2. Avoid 404 errors

Check your webmaster crawl errors if you want to improve your SEO ranking on Google.

It isn‘t allowed to talk about SEO without the Google Webmaster tool. We advise you follow the Crawl Errors report in your Google Webmaster account. Google isn’t happy about 404 errors, but you can easily find all these errors in the report and fix them in your website. When you fix these errors in your website, mark them in Webmaster.

3. Image optimization

Image size, proper names, use of ALT tag – you can handle all these things without technical knowledge. Many websites administrators forget that Google is also indexing images and it is important to add proper image names. For image compression you can install the image optimization tool CheetahO to your WordPress site and compress images with the click of one button.

4. Use the SEO Yoast plugin to improve SEO ranking

Some WordPress websites are still struggling with the length of their page title and meta description. Don’t be lazy – install the SEO Yoast plugin and that’s everything you need for page title and meta description.
Today is a good day to start working on you SEO!

The post How to Improve SEO Ranking without Development? appeared first on CheetahO.

Image compression, including GIFs, is one of the main things you can do to shrink your page size. This also improves your website load time. In most cases you will face a problem if you want to publish good looking GIFs that can be shared around the web. Most GIFs you see online are either super large GIF files or horribly compressed. 

If you are writing a blog post you should definitely use GIFs to enrich your content, but Google will not be happy with the large size of those files in your website. Furthermore, GIFs with huge sizes are a massive pain for any reader with slow Internet connections or bandwidth limits.

Compress animated GIF images online with CheetahO

We are happy to announce that GIF optimization is finally available with the image optimization tool CheetahO.

CheetahO is an incredibly efficient way for lossless compress GIF image compression. It can reduce animated GIF file size by 30%—50% at a cost of some dithering/noise. CheetahO tool shrinks GIF file size and compress GIF file by reducing the number of colors in each frame. Also frame drop option remove every second, third, or fourth frame to reduce frame rate and, therefore, file size. Useful for long gifs with a high frame rate.

You can use CheetahO as a free online GIF file optimizer. GIF images can also be compressed using our WordPress plugin.

The post Compress GIF images with CheetahO! appeared first on CheetahO.

Seasons’ greeting from image optimizer CheetahO! As the year winds down, we would like to review the image optimization tool CheetahO’s progress and introduce our new year’s resolution for 2017.

Why did we start CheetahO?

We’ve been working with web development for more than 5 years and we always want to deliver a valuable website for the customer. That’s why we started to gain knowledge in SEO. A website without SEO fundamentals will only be an invisible business card.

We tested many different WordPress plugins for image optimization – but most of them were pretty difficult to use for WordPress administartors, they lack compress ratio or they destroy image quality. Some of them simply cost too much. So we invested two months of development and released the first version of CheetahO.

There were 12,000 images optimized in our first three months. Is this a good achievement? Now we have about 80,000 optimized images. So, yes, we are happy. And it’s a must to mention that we invested $0 into marketing. As expected for our first version, we are still solving some bugs and improving the code.

What’s next with image optimizer?

We have planned to improve compression ratio and solve all the small glitches in the next couple of months. Image optimization speed is also a priority.

But the real next big thing will be to adapt CheetahO WordPress plugin for WooCommerce.

We’d be very grateful if you’d help spread the word about the CheetahO by sharing it to your friends or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook. We are working on a referral program so our best customers will be able to get free images to optimize.

The post Online image optimizer. What Happened in 2016? appeared first on CheetahO.

Right file name

The biggest mistake a lazy guy can do is uploading images to the website from your Digital camera or smartphone with initial files names (for example DCM_7485148, LG_20160170804). If you don’t invest some time to help Google read the information about your image, Google will not invest time to indexing your content. Your file name helps relevant pictures appear in search results. It provides information about what is in the picture for the search engine. Keep in mind that it is only a name so be sure not to overdo: use up to 2 keywords in one file name.

Alt text

The purpose of Alt attributes is to describe the content of the image file. Alt text is a great opportunity to utilize your keywords and help increase the chances for your image appearing in search results. Moreover, if an image doesn‘t load in a browser, Alt text will be shown instead and will give the context for what is in the image.
If you are using WordPress, you can add Alt text when editing your picture.

Image optimization

The load time of a website is one of the key factors Google considers in its algorithm. We see many extremely bad examples when a website administrator uploads 7 MB or bigger images to the website gallery.
The most important step in image optimization is resizing. Very rarely are images bigger than 2000×1500 px required for website. You must resize it. Another step in optimizing image size is compressing. And this is where you get to use the image optimization tool CheetahO. Just drag the pictures to CheetahO and it will take care of your images size. And you can install the CheethaO plugin if you use WordPress.
Don‘t abandon image optimization, because it is a smart way to increase traffic to your site.

The post Why is Image Optimization Important? appeared first on CheetahO.