Here is my latest article. It may be freely used in ezines, on
websites or in e-books, as long as the Resource Box is left
intact.
I would appreciate notification of where it was used, and if
possible, a copy of the ezine or newsletter that it was used in.
Please send notification mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com
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How often have you waited, impatiently, for your browser to pull
in the next website? Too many times, probably.
Many of these slow-poke sites may be worth seeing, but how long
are you prepared to wait? Probably no more than 7 to 10 seconds,
which is what most say.
Now, you've maybe seen or read a lot about improving the loading
time for your website. And, you may even be saying to yourself
now, "Oh, no...not another guru trying to tell me what to do!"
Well, in the first place, I'm no guru (very few can legitimately
claim that accolade) and secondly, I cannot tell you what to do.
I can only relate what I did, and the improvement I achieved.
It's up to you to do something, if you want to...that's your
choice! ;-)
Firstly, the website in question - http://submissionjunction.com
- used to load, at off-peak times, on my computer (an ageing 133
mHz, P1, 32MEG RAM, 56k modem) in around 15-20 seconds.
To make things crystal clear, I'll define load time thus:
Being the elapsed time from the moment that the ENTER key is
depressed to the moment that the first information appears on
the screen (purists would argue that load time is actually more
precise, and I agree. For surfers on the web, however, this
definition will suffice).
Note that I'm not counting the appearance of BACKGROUND
information within that elapsed time, e.g a tiled .gif, although
some may; BACKGROUND, after all, is not strictly information,
although it does indicate activity.
Now, a load time of 15-20 seconds is way too slow, and with peak
hours and heavy traffic, I ran increased risk that people
clicked away.
I wanted a load time of 4-6 seconds in off-peak and no more than
10 seconds during the very heaviest traffic times.
This is how I did it:
1. The banner and headlines, that I want to appear on the screen
first, are placed immediately after the BODY statement, and
before anything else. This is the information I want prospects
to see quickly, so that I can pique their curiosity and perhaps
retain their interest.
2. Formatting, at this stage, is confined to one small TABLE and
centering the information: one banner, one small animation and
three headlines. This is important; there is no fancy or
additional coding at this point.
3. No Flash, JAVA, Javascript, SSI, CGI, Style Sheets, XML or
DHTML is used. They all have their place, on the web, but I
don't need or want them at loading time.
4. All other TABLE formatting and all other .gif or .jpg files
are placed after the information in Step 1.
All timings were done using IE5.5. As IE is the predominant
browser (like it or not), and looks like remaining so, I'm not
too concerned about Netscape (in addition, there is an ongoing
problem with Netscape and the Moreover.com newsfeed that I have
yet to fix).
If you click on this link:
http://submissionjunction.com/olddefault.htm you'll experience
the load time of my previous homepage. If it loads in less than
8 seconds on your screen, then your lines and connections are
very good and your traffic is light. Usually, it has taken as
many as 15+ seconds to load, as I said.
Now, click on http://submissionjunction.com . It should load in
6 seconds or less, in off-peak times. And, at normal peak times,
the loading should not exceed 10 seconds (bearing in mind
however, that in severe traffic snarls, all bets are off).
Of course, with much faster CPU speed, the browser would be able
to format and present the information more quickly. On the
internet, however, one must always cater for the lowest common
denominator.
There are, no doubt, more sophisticated ways of achieving
reductions in load time. If simple measures however, such as
above, achieve the desired result, why bother with more complex
methods?
Your objective should be to get your message in front of your
prospects' eyes, as quickly and as easily as possible!
Visiting a web site is much like knocking on somebody's door.
After you knock, you expect the occupier to open it quickly. If
it's a store, and nobody answers or they're too slow, we'll walk
away, right...and go down the road to the competition, right?
So, the quicker I get my message across to you, the quicker we
both win. And, isn't that what we all want?
P.S. If you don't do anything else, even placing a comment like
"Page Loading...Please Wait" is better than just a blank screen,
while the browser formats your page. But, don't take toooo
long...!
About the author:
Roger Burke has been involved with computers since 1967, and has
managed to break quite a few, over the years. He, and his wife
Sherry, are now actively engaged in online self-publishing and
promoting specific affiliate programs at
http://online-wealth.com . If you have any comments or questions
about this article, please send emails to
mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com . Copyright 2001,
Online-Wealth. All rights reserved.
