An important aspect of website design is to reduce web page load time to the lowest possible. A slim trim website design is in some ways like an attractive athletic woman, so let us call this article "A website weight loss programme" that will help you make your web pages load much faster.

Why is it so important to reduce website load time?

A website has global reach but Internet connection speeds in various countries are not the same. A lot of dial-ups and slow broadband connections still exist. Recently published research has revealed that unless massive amounts are spent on improving Internet infrastructure, the average global connection speed may show a dip by 2010. Even for those who do have high-speed connections, the total number of relevant websites on the Internet is growing fast. This directly translates into less time spent by the viewer per web page. Generally speaking, patience is a rare commodity in today's world of reducing resource-to-consumption ratios. Do you want to neglect a large proportion of potential worldwide customers just because your web page load time is slow? If not, then follow the steps below to reduce website load time.

Women usually work on trimming the hips, shaping legs and removing cellulites in various places. Similarly, I have classified below "website weight loss programme" into three ‘broad’ categories: Graphics, Code and Other Factors. Please note that you should meticulously follow as many steps as you can to take the redundant fat out of your website design and reduce "website loading time" to a bare minimum.

WEBSITE WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAMME

A. TRIM the Graphics (Slim hips:-)

1. Avoid Graphic Heavy or Complicated Web Design

Website designs that use many images (especially those with special effects) generally take a long time to load. What if a good looking website keeps loosing valuable visitors just because its web pages take too much loading time? Try to be discrete and use less number of images / graphics while maintaining the look and impact of the website design. Remember that text links are easily read by search engines and load faster than graphic buttons. Sometimes it is also possible to move large images from an important page to a section like "Gallery" to reduce web page load time.

2. Use Only Optimized Images

Optimize each image in editing software like Photoshop. There are different image formats like GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF etc., so try to save images in the appropriate format. As a rule-of-thumb, GIF is more suitable for uniform color images and JPEG for real world scenes. GIF saved at 256 colors should be reduced (as much as possible) to 128, 64 or 32 colors without comprising image quality. To reduce website load time JPEGs should be saved in the lowest quality possible without spoiling picture impact. You can also use PNG if you are sure that your users are using newer browsers.

3. Specify Image Dimensions

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