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Tips on Designing a Fast Loading Web Site

In this rapidly spinning world, it is imperative to not only design a captivating Website, but to also ensure that it loads up with lightening speed. At Slinky Web Design we believe that not all your visitors could be accessing your Website, while using the latest laptops or PCs connected to hi-speed broadband connections. Here are some useful tips on designing a fast loading Website.

Restrict Graphics, Images And Animations To The Minimum: Even though your Website does not have to be filled with only monotonous text, ensure that you do not go flat out by filling it with graphics, images, animations or video. The right mix of graphics with content is essential in maintaining the optimum speed of your site. Alternatively, enhance your text by using various colors, in order to make it look attractive without compromising on speed or file size. Animations should be avoided, unless absolutely necessary. If possible, shift all your fancy images, videos and animations to another site and offer a highlighted link from your home page.

Incorporate HTML Tables: Tables not only look good on any Web page, but also load quickly. Ensure that you set the width for all the cells in a particular table and that the sum of all the cells in one row tallies with the table width. Make sure that your tables get displayed properly with all the browsers by testing it.

Cut Down On Colors And Resolutions: Your images should use 'GIF' or 'JPEG' format, since most of the browsers are comfortable with it, even though 'JPEG' requires a large number of colors. Limit the number of colors in your image with the color palette, since fewer colors will reduce the image size. Since a large number of visitors might still be using monitors with low to medium resolutions, do not store your images in a very high resolution, unless absolutely necessary. This will only slow down your Website. You should also make sure that the icons on your site are not very large and use minimum, but entrancing colors.

Cut Down On Flash: While there is no doubt that Flash can enhance your Website, it is painfully slow and visitors with slower machines and even slower connections might simply get agitated and move away to another site. In case you do not have any other option, then at least incorporate Flash into an HTML and check its speed before using it on your site.

Test Your Website Speed At Regular Intervals: Test your Website using various machines with varying speeds, browsers, operating systems and Internet connections, in order to find flaws. If you are regularly adding content or changing the images in your Website, then regular speed-testing will be necessary to determine, if your Website has improved or deteriorated after each change. Make sure that your graphics load and run smoothly and that your text does not spill out even under different resolution settings.

Do Not Embark On A Linking Spree: Instead of providing innumerable links to impress your visitors, reduce your links to increase your speed. Your links should offer invaluable information to your visitors and you should also keep an eye out for disabled links by testing your site on a regular basis.

Thus, by paying heed to the above tips, you can easily increase the speed of your Website and your visitors too will enjoy their surfing experience. At Slinky Web Design we believe that a fast loading Website will naturally have higher traffic and thus increase the chances of converting dormant visitors into active clients.

Peter Brittain is a director of Slinky Web Design, who have been leaders in Perth Website Design in Australia since 1999.

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