Ok everyone
hates junky slow sites. I mean come on. I have a 10mbit connection at
home and
some websites take several minutes to load I can’t even begin
to imagine what
hell this might be like if you are on dialup. So if you
haven’t heard this
before then you are hearing it for the first time but it’s
been said a million
times… (Sorry for shouting)
Get rid of
your widgets!!!!!!!!!!!
Get rid of
the ridiculous backgrounds
and images!!!!!!
Not unless
you
know how to optimize this or take the minimalist route you are just
killing off
potential visitors to your sites and blogs.
Ok now that
we
have that out of the way what if you don’t have widgets or
bloated images? What
if your site is still taking forever to load? Well just coincidentally
I was
thinking about this with my Eau Claire Real Estate website and why it
was
taking so long. It’s not the slowest but it’s not
as zippy as it used to be. So
I asked around and so far am still sort of waiting on some answers but
that’s when
I stumbled on
this story
today. This looks like a pretty comprehensive list of things
to fix on your
site to make it speed up. The problem for me and probably the problem
for a lot
of people is that this looks like some pretty extreme coding and
programming
and that’s not really my forte. I do have some experience but
it’s not enough
to just rewrite the site. It even looks like some of the stuff is
probably
something you should do when you design the site and an awful mess to
try to go
back and fix it. But again if your site is slow what else can you do?
If your
site is a big turn off it doesn’t matter how much SEO you do
your site is going
to have a huge bounce rate and trust me you don’t want that!
But really
that’s
such a good list and maybe I can offer a way to help you. If you notice
at the
bottom of his post there are some tools listed there. You are going to
need
Firefox for this and really if you are doing site design I think FF is
the way
to go. I don’t know about you but Internet Exploder crashes
on me daily and
when I am in the middle of designing my home page and it crashes my
fist tends
to go flying through the monitor and I am a very passive person. (I am
also
kind of kidding here… it’s more like a mental fist)
Anyways see that
link there for Yslow?
Well before you get that get this
Firebug tool
first because it’s a must for debugging. Now
install both of these tools
and take a look at your site. The Yslow has a diagnostic tool for your
site and
you can see how it rates your site and it tells you some things that
you should
fix. I noticed it’s pretty much a list of what that guy says
in the 14 things.
My site gets an F and I don’t like F’s. I have a
feeling very few sites are
going to pass this thing with an A but it should give you some
direction as to
what you need to fix. If you don’t know how then you should
probably think
about paying someone to help you here because if people
aren’t staying on your
site then there really isn’t a point in having one.
6 Comments
on 14 Rules for Faster Loading Web Sites
MAR
12
2009
YES! When you were talking about slow sites on fast connections I was thinking about some of the Active Rain blogs that I WANT to read, but won't. I click away during the slow load time of massive quantities of widgets and large backgrounds. Although I will admit that the few times I have stayed around and discovered it was just a large background image slowing the load that I have contacted the blog owner and offered to reduce the size of their background and send it to them. Only 2 have taken me up on my offer, but whatever!
Yeah it just plain sucks for us trying to go there even if you really want to read what they said. And honestly even after some people optimize the images they load slow. I just dont see the need. I dont even think the background images look good. Why not just plain white and put in a header graphic? If it works for Google it should work for you.
I know of one person that is a regularly featured AR member and its like a 3-4 minute wait for their blog. I still have barely ever read anything by them. Even if I load their blog and then go do something else when I come back its often still not loaded!
Shane, I also hate picture-heavy websites. Most websites do not use heavy graphics now. Another tip is to use vector-based software to develop graphics. Photoshop is not good other than for some major logos.
that is some really good info.. I'm a web programmer and never have used the firefox plugin before but I am going to check it out.. Fast loading pages has always been one of my number one priorities... Many Realtors are always wanting flashy websites, but flashy websites don't get you leads...
Eau Claire Real Estate and The Real State of Real Estate in the Chippewa Valley. A blog created for the people of Eau Claire and the greater Chippewa Valley to extensively cover real estate matters as they pertain to the people who matter most to me. Local real estate issues for local people. Buy or Sell, I'll Treat You Well!
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
;)
;)
YES! When you were talking about slow sites on fast connections I was thinking about some of the Active Rain blogs that I WANT to read, but won't. I click away during the slow load time of massive quantities of widgets and large backgrounds. Although I will admit that the few times I have stayed around and discovered it was just a large background image slowing the load that I have contacted the blog owner and offered to reduce the size of their background and send it to them. Only 2 have taken me up on my offer, but whatever!