Put Your Graphics On A Diet
- Image Optimization -

How many times have you gone to a website and had to wait for a blank page with a whole bunch of images to load?

When that happens to me, I usually close the window, unless the website is something very important.

Remember that not everybody has fast internet access. People with modems may not consider it worth their time to wait for 20-30 images to load.

Try to hook up with somebody who has a slow computer and have them access your website. How long is it taking to load?

Make sure all your images are optimized. You want to 'crunch' them down for size, yet you want them to keep their quality.

I was at a site recently where I thought the server was really slow at loading images. Well, it was actually trying to load a 900kb bmp image! An image like that could be 'crunched' down to less than 100kb.

Optimizing your images is one of the most important things to do if you want to have a website that will load fast.

You don't want people to get tired of waiting and click away, do you?

About the contributor

Jonathan Harbaugh is PRO Website Management's webmaster He puts out his newsletter, Awesome Solutions For Webmasters, every two weeks. If you haven't subscribed yet, you still can! Click here to subscribe

This article was first published in Awesome Solutions For Webmasters, in issue 6. You can read the issue here.

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