Why convert JPG to WebP?
Images are usually the heaviest part of a web page. Google created WebP to deliver similar visual quality in fewer bytes, so switching your JPGs to WebP is one of the simplest ways to speed up a site.
- Faster loading: smaller images help pages appear sooner, especially on mobile data, and can improve Core Web Vitals such as Largest Contentful Paint.
- Fewer speed-test warnings: tools like Google PageSpeed Insights often recommend serving images in modern formats such as WebP.
- Less bandwidth and storage: lighter files cost less to host and download faster for every visitor.
Where WebP works, and where to keep JPG
All current major browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari) display WebP, and WordPress has accepted WebP uploads since version 5.8. Most modern site builders and online shop platforms handle it too, and Google can index WebP images, so switching formats doesn't keep your pictures out of Google Images.
WebP isn't the right choice everywhere, though:
| Where the image is going | Best format |
|---|---|
| Your website or blog | WebP |
| Online shop product pages | WebP, if your platform accepts it |
| Email newsletters | JPG: some email apps don't display WebP |
| Application forms and portals | JPG: many accept only JPG or PNG |
| Printing | JPG |
Keep your original JPGs as master copies: they're what you'll use for email, print and forms.
Choosing the right quality
WebP files are encoded with the quality you set on the slider. For most photos, a setting around 75–85% gives clean results with a clear drop in size. Push it higher for large hero images and photography portfolios, and lower for small thumbnails where fine detail isn't visible anyway.
Because a JPG has already been compressed once, converting it to WebP adds a second round of compression. Start from the best version of each photo you have, ideally the original from your camera or editing app, rather than a JPG that has already been downloaded or compressed.
Example: preparing photos for a blog post
Imagine a blog post with eight photos taken on a phone. Straight from the camera, each one is several megabytes and thousands of pixels wide, far more than a typical blog layout displays.
- Check the widest size your theme shows images at, for example 1600 pixels. If the photos are much bigger, resize them first with the Image Resizer: it can save straight to WebP, which combines both steps.
- Otherwise, add the JPGs here; WebP is already selected.
- Set the quality to around 80% and download the batch as a ZIP.
- Upload the WebP files to your site and give each one descriptive alt text.
Sensible dimensions plus WebP compression usually make the page far lighter than uploading the original photos, and the GPS location is removed from each photo before it goes public.
Tips for web-ready images
- Don't upscale small images. Converting won't sharpen a small or blurry JPG, and enlarging it first only adds bytes.
- Need an exact file size? Compress Image can output WebP and aim for a KB target.
- Name files descriptively, for example red-running-shoes.webp, so search engines understand what each image shows.
- Graphics with transparency should be converted from the PNG, not a JPG. See PNG to WebP.