So your web site's online and you've got high rankings in the
search engines attracting lots of visitors. But the statistics
tell you most of them are leaving after viewing just one page,
what's gone wrong?
One possible cause could be a slow download speed of your web
site's homepage or the web site as a whole. There is nothing
worse than having to wait for a web site to load up. Studies
indicate that the majority of visitors will only wait 3 - 5
seconds for a homepage to load up before clicking elsewhere. If
your homepage doesn't load up in this time (from a standard
internet connection) you are running the risk of losing lots of
visitors before they've even read the content of the homepage.
They Won't Hang Around!
You should always assume that most visitors will be connecting
to the Internet using standard equipment - not super-charged
fast connections. The main culprits of slow download times for a
homepage are images. Just remember - every part of every web
page you view has to travel down the phone line and onto your
screen - the larger the item the longer this will take to
happen. It is for this reason that you will sometimes notice the
text on a web page loads up on your screen before the images.
This is because of the simple reason that images are larger in
file size than text and therefore take longer to come down the
phone line.
The more large images you have your homepage the slower it will
be to download. Nobody is saying get rid of all images from a
homepage - as with many things in life - they key to success is
balance. Try not to sacrifice your web site's aesthetic for
quicker download times but, at the same time, don't have large
images or animations on the homepage, as these will take longer
to download.
Does Your Homepage Need To Go On A Diet?
As a rule of thumb it is recommended that a homepage be around
40 - 50 Kilobytes in size. Any larger and will be a slow
downloading homepage, any smaller and it will be quicker than
average. One of the best ways to decrease download times is to
reduce the number of images being used or optimise them by
reducing the number of colours they use or cropping them
slightly.
Other pages on your web site are less important than the
homepage when it comes to download speed as by this point users
will already have made the commitment to enter the main body of
the web site and will therefore be willing to wait a little
longer for the information they require.
Michael Cheney, www.magnet4web.com ©
About the author:
Michael Cheney is a successful entrepreneur and owner of
magnet4web.com - one of the UK's leading website marketing
companies. You can read more of his articles and download your
FREE website marketing guide "How To Turn Your Website Into A
Customer Magnet" at www.magnet4web.com
