How to Speed Up Download Time on a Web Page

Introduction

Fast Web pages are the key to keeping visitors interested. There are many ways to optimize a site for fast download.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Steps

1.) Begin at the root of your page: Keep the background graphic simple or use a color for the background instead of a graphic.

2.) Keep images small and use the HEIGHT and WIDTH Hypertext tags to specify size. Visit a Web site, such as GifCruncher, that will automatically reduce your GIF pictures without
sacrificing quality.

3.) Reduce the number of images used in general. The best Web pages are uncluttered, easy to
read and fast.

4.) Use the HR tag to insert a horizontal line instead of using a graphic line, which takes up
space.

5.) Create several small tables instead of one large table on the Web page. Each table has to load separately before the viewer can see the contents - with smaller tables, the viewer will see content loading faster.

6.) Limit the number of advertisement banners on a Web page. Each advertisement banner
must call up information from another site; if that site is slow, so is your page.

7.) Keep the page short and simple. Create other pages for information that doesn't belong on the welcome page.

8.) Use the same background, fonts and, if possible, images throughout your Web site. Once an
image has been loaded, it usually remains in the viewer's cache file and does not have to be reloaded when a viewer visits another page with the same image.

9.) Keep special effects, animations, scrolling text and other images to a minimum. These eye-catching effects can bog down a page.

Tips & Warnings

• Try to keep each page below 25K, including graphics and special effects.
  
  
• Always use the HEIGHT and WIIDTH tags for an image, even if you've already resized it in a paint program. Specifying the height and width allows the browser to finish the rest of the page while loading the image.
  
  
• Do not save bandwidth by linking to an image on another Web site. Download the image to the hard drive and insert a link to the other Web site.