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Reducing Load Time - Image Optimization

More and more internet users are switching to broadband every year. It is becoming more widely available and affordable but let’s not forget the large population that is still using dialup. These are the people you need to keep in mind when designing a website. The most important consideration for these users and your sites success is load up time.

If your site is all text then no problem here and load up time will generally be fast. The guilty party of slow loading time is images, either a lot of them or one very large one. Now a site designer has to find just the right balance to attract users with images but not bog down the page to where no one will wait for it to open.

Pay close attention to any images you use and use image editing software to remove unnecessary information on your images, reducing file size without effecting appearance but also speeding up load time. Maybe consider a smaller thumbnail version that a user can opt to click for a larger view.

There are many free image compressors online that you can download to help reduce your images file size. If you own Photoshop, and save an image as a JPEG file, a dialog box appears and lets you choose the quality of the JPEG image. Normally a setting of 8 to 10 is good as it will preserve the quality of your image while saving it at a small file size.

You can opt to save your images in PNG format to get the best quality but remember that best quality equals large files. Sometimes you just may need to have that quality, just remember that too many on one page can cause major delays in viewing. You can also save your images in GIF format giving you the smallest file size possible. However, saving in GIF format will often compromise the appearance of your image, so make your choice wisely!