AVIF Image Format & Can I Use It on My WordPress Site?

If you’ve been wondering whether you can use the AVIF image format on your WordPress site, the answer is yes!

Images are vital to any website. They enhance user experience, improve engagement, and contribute to SEO. However, large image files can slow down your site, negatively impacting load times and overall performance.

That’s where the AVIF format comes in. AVIF is a modern image format that achieves superior compression efficiency while delivering high-quality images.

In this article, we’ll clarify what the AVIF images are and the benefits of using that file format. Also, we’ll give you a few valuable tips on why you should definitely use this new image format, as well as how to do it in WordPress.

What is AVIF Image Format?

AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) is a next-generation image file format developed by the Alliance for Open Media. It is based on the AV1 video codec and designed to offer superior image compression while maintaining high visual quality.

Advantages of Using the Image File Format AVIF

AVIF offers numerous benefits that make it a strong contender for replacing older image formats. Its superior compression, enhanced transparency, and future-proof nature contribute to a faster, more efficient web experience.

Switching to AVIF images can provide multiple benefits for your website:

1. Smaller File Size Without Quality Loss

AVIF file format often makes images 50% smaller than equivalent JPEGs, and even 30% smaller than WebP, all while maintaining the same level of detail. AVIF achieves that thanks to advanced compression techniques like intra-frame prediction, transform coding, entropy coding, and adaptive quantization.

Smaller file sizes and high image quality lead to faster page load speeds, improving user experience and SEO rankings.

2. Improved Website Performance & Core Web Vitals

Google considers page speed and image optimization ranking factors. Reducing your image size with AVIF format will make your site load faster, improving the Core Web Vitals.

Metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) are tightly related to image content and impact search rankings.

3. Better Mobile Optimization

With more than half of global web traffic coming from mobile devices, having lightweight images is essential. AVIF helps improve load times on slow networks and reduces bandwidth usage.

AVIF also supports adaptive streaming, which allows images to be served in different resolutions based on the user’s device and network conditions. This further improves image performance on mobile platforms.

4. Superior Transparency and HDR Support

AVIF supports features like transparency (alpha channels) and high dynamic range (HDR), which improve visual presentation, especially for high-resolution displays.

It allows images to maintain richer color depth and better contrast, making it ideal for modern screens. This includes OLED and HDR-compatible monitors. Additionally, AVIF’s advanced color management ensures that images appear more vibrant and lifelike across different devices and browsers.

5. Future-Proof Format

With backing from major tech companies like Google, Mozilla, and Netflix, AVIF is set to become the dominant image file format for the web. More and more platforms, content management systems, and graphic tools continue to adopt AVIF, its usage will only grow.

As more platforms embrace AVIF, it’s crucial to understand why you should use this format for your WordPress site.

Why Should You Use the AVIF Format?

Using AVIF image formats on your WordPress site can significantly improve performance, SEO, and user experience.

Here’s why it’s worth considering:

• Google loves fast websites. The smaller AVIF file size helps improve your site’s loading time, which can boost your search rankings.
• Better user experience. Faster load times mean lower bounce rates and better engagement.
• Bandwidth savings. AVIF reduces server load and data transfer costs.
• WordPress compatibility. With AVIF support available in WordPress 6.5 and newer, switching is easier than ever.

AVIF Support

Before switching to AVIF, it’s important to understand where and how it is supported:

1. Browser Support

Major web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera now support AVIF images. However, Safari still has limited support for AVIF. To ensure compatibility, WordPress allows you to use fallback images for browsers that don’t yet support AVIF.

2. WordPress Support

As of WordPress 6.5, AVIF image format support is now built-in. This means you can upload AVIF images just like JPEGs or PNGs.

3. Lazy Loading Benefits

WordPress automatically applies lazy loading to AVIF images, improving load speeds by only loading images when they are about to appear on the screen.

Since AVIF reduces image size without losing quality, your website will load faster and consume less storage space on your hosting server.

How to Use AVIF Images in WordPress

If your WordPress site is hosted on SiteGround, using AVIF images is straightforward. Here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Check Your WordPress Version

Verify if your website is running WordPress 6.5 or newer. If you’re using an older version, update it to enable AVIF support.

Step 2: Verify Your PHP Version & Settings

For AVIF support to work properly, make sure:

• Your site is running PHP 8 or newer.
  

  

• The Imagick PHP extension is enabled on your SiteGround hosting.
  

  

Step 3: Upload AVIF Images

Once your WordPress is updated, you can upload AVIF files just like you would with PNG or JPG images.

Step 4: Test Browser Compatibility

Since some browsers (like Safari) may not support AVIF yet, consider using a plugin that serves fallback images to ensure compatibility across all devices.

Step 5: Optimize Images For Web Use

Even though AVIF is highly optimized, you can further enhance performance by using the SiteGround Speed Optimizer plugin. This plugin helps:

• Automatically compress AVIF images without losing quality.
• Serve optimized images based on browser support.
• Enable caching for faster load times.
• Improve overall website speed with additional performance tweaks.

Wrap Up

AVIF is changing the game for web images. With superior compression, smaller file sizes, and high image quality, it’s a must-have format for modern WordPress websites. Now that WordPress supports AVIF, making the switch is easier than ever—just verify that your site is updated and properly configured.

If you’re running your WordPress site on SiteGround, enabling AVIF images can give your website a performance boost and improve SEO rankings.

Start using AVIF today and make your site faster, more efficient, and future-proof!