Make Your Site Load Faster

Some people say that WWW really stands for "World Wide Wait" because web pages take so long to load. Here are some tips on how to make your pages load faster, so your visitors have a better experience at your site:

• Don't make your pages very long. Instead of loading everything you have on one page, consider breaking it up into smaller chunks, each on its own page. That way, your visitors can decide if they want to see more.
• Don't put too many graphics on one page. Each graphic adds to the download time of the page. You should use the bare minimum number of graphics you need to achieve the effect you want. Note: if you use the same graphic multiple times (a bullet, for instance), that's okay, because it only downloads once.
• Make sure your graphics are using the highest compression possible that still gives them the level of quality you want. For instance, some simple GIF images could be done with only 16 colors instead of 256. JPEG images can often use a higher level of compression and still maintain a good quality.
• Set the size of your graphics in the IMG tag. If you set the height and width attributes for an image, a browser can properly format the page around the graphic even if the image has not yet been downloaded.