Released on: March 6, 2008, 2:52 am

Press Release Author: Manbeer Singh

Industry: Internet & Online

Press Release Summary: Squeezing the most efficient performance from your web pages
is important. The benefits are universal, whether the site is personal or large and
professional.

Press Release Body: Squeezing the most efficient performance from your web pages is
important. The benefits are universal, whether the site is personal or large and
professional. Reducing page weight can speed up the browsing experience, especially
if your visitors are using dial-up internet access. Though broadband access is the
future, the present still contains a great deal of dial-up users. Many sites,
ecommerce sites especially, cannot afford to ignore this large section of the
market. Sites with a large amount of unique traffic may also save on their total
monthly traffic by slimming down their web pages. This article will cover the basics
of on-page optimization in both text/code and graphics.

Graphics

Graphics are the usual suspect on heavy pages. Either as a result of a highly
graphic design, or a few poorly optimized images, graphics can significantly extend
the load-time of a web page. The first step in graphics optimization is very basic.
Decide if the graphics are absolutely necessary and simply eliminate or move the
ones that aren\'t. Removing large graphics from the homepage to a separate gallery
will likely increase the number of visitors who \"hang around\" to let the homepage
load. Separating larger photos or art to a gallery also provides the opportunity to
provide fair warning to users clicking on the gallery that it may take longer to
load. In the case of graphical buttons, consider the use of text based, CSS-styled
buttons instead. Sites that use a highly graphic design, a common theme in website
\"templates\", need to optimize their graphics as best as possible.

Graphics optimization first involves selecting the appropriate file type for your
image. Though this topic alone is fodder for far more in depth analysis, I will
touch on it briefly. Images come in 2 basic varieties, those that are photographic
in nature, and those that are graphic in nature. Photographs have a large array of
colors all jumbled together in what\'s referred to as continuous tone. Graphics, such
as business logos, are generally smooth, crisp and have large areas of the same
color. Photographs are best compressed into \"JPEGs\". The \"Joint Photographic Expert
Group\" format can successfully compress large photos down to very manageable sizes.
It is usually applied on a sliding \"quality\" scale between 1-100, 1 being the most
compressed and lowest quality, 100 the least and highest quality. JPEG is a \"lossy\"
compression algorithm, meaning it \"destroys\" image information when applied, so
always keep a copy of the original file. Graphics and logos generally work best in
the \"GIF\", or more recently, the \"PNG\" format. These formats are more efficient than
JPEGs at reducing the size of images with large areas of similar color, such as
logos or graphical text.

A few general notes on other media are appropriate. Other types of media such as
Flash or sound files also slow down a page. The first rule is always the same;
consider whether they are absolutely necessary. If you are choosing to build the
site entirely in Flash, then make sure the individual sections and elements are as
well compressed as possible. In the case of music, I will admit to personal bias
here and paraphrase a brilliant old saying, \"Websites should be seen and not heard.\"
Simply, music playing in the background will not \"enhance\" any browsing experience.

Text and Code

The most weight to be trimmed on a page will come from graphical and media elements,
but it is possible to shed a few extra bytes by looking at the text and code of a
web page. In terms of actual text content, there may not be much to do here. A
page\'s content is key not only to the user\'s understanding but also search engine
ranking. Removing or better organizing content is only necessary in extreme
situations, where more than page weight is an issue. An example might be a long,
text heavy web page requiring a lengthy vertical scrolling to finish. Such a page is
common on \"infomercial\" sites, and violates basic design tenants beyond those
related to page weight.

Code is a different story. A website\'s code can be made more efficient in a variety
of fashions. First, via the use of CSS, all style elements of a web page can now be
called via an external file. This same file can be called on all a site\'s pages,
providing for a uniform look and feel. Not only is this more efficient; it is also
the official recommendation from the W3C. The same may be said of XHTML and the
abandonment of \"table\" based layout. Tables, though effective for layout, produce
more code than equivalent XHTML layouts using \"div\" tags. Where a minimum of 3 tags
are required to create a \"box\" with content in a table, only 1 is needed using
divisions. Using XHTML and CSS in combination can significantly reduce the amount of
\"on page\" code required by a web page. A final, relatively insignificant trick is
the removal of all \"white space\" from your code. Browsers don\'t require it; it is
primarily so authors can readily read and interpret the code. The savings are
minimal at best, but for sites that receive an extreme amount of traffic, even a few
saved bytes will add up over time.

Conclusions

Target images and media files first when seeking to reduce the weight of a page.
They are the largest components of overall page weight and simply removing them can
significantly reduce total weight. The images that remain should be optimally
compressed into a format appropriate for their type, photos or graphics. Avoid huge
blocks of text that cause unnecessary vertical scrolling. Organize the site more
efficiently to spread the information across multiple pages. Adopt XHTML and CSS to
reduce the size of the on-page code, and call the CSS externally. These tips should
help reduce the size of your pages and speed their delivery to your viewers.


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