Website Optimization

Googles Emphasis on Slow Websites, and the Implications of Website Ranking...

Google will be placing greater emphasis on filtering out fast and slow websites. Think about it, who wants to sit and wait for a slow website to load? Let’s face it. A slow website can turn off potential customers and harm its popularity and credibility. In today's world, anyone visiting a website is looking for something in particular, be it information, products or services, and more significantly want access to the content quickly.

Google, the leading search engine, will be placing greater emphasis on slow and fast websites, thus resulting in faster websites (along with other SEO factors) being ranked better than slow websites.

So, what can be done to increase the speed of a website? Website Developers, Website Designers should follow some key rules;

Avoid too many graphics and too many colors

- A major factor why websites can be slow is the use of large, or too many images that have not been optimized.Using the same image over and over again can reduce the download time, as a graphic image is only downloaded once, and stored in the computer’s cache and doesn’t have to be downloaded again.

- Secondly, reduce the number of colors used in the graphics. Using fewer colors will bring down the size of the graphics significantly, and will allow you to save images as gif's as opposed to jpg formats(GIF or JPEG image by 40% to 50% without losing any significant definition or sharpness).

- Using HTML for text and hyperlinks will decrease your page size, thus reducing the download speeds.

- Make sure your web developer is using appropriate graphic optimization and compression techniques

Always include Height and Width Tags

Include height and width tags are included for each of the web page graphics. This will allow the browser to pre-allocate the space needed for the graphics, allowing the page to load quickly.

Without Height & Width Tag

<IMG SRC="seattle-web-developerr.gif" ALT="Seattle Web designer">

With Height & Width Tag

<IMG SRC="seattle-web-developerr.gif" WIDTH=105 HEIGHT=97 ALT="Seattle Web designer">

Reduce and avoid excessive Java Script & Flash

Yes Flash animation does provide the best of presentation, but excessive use of Flash can slow website download. The same also implies to JavaScript. There are a number of methods available in terms of optimizing these.

CSS is here to stay

It is best to ensure that web pages, as well as websites are built using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Usage of CSS as opposed to tables can usually reduce the size of web pages.

Use Relative uniform Resource Locators (URL's)

File size can also be reduced when using relative URLs instead of absolute URLs provided the web pages are on the same server.

Visualwebz disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Visualwebz llc.