Speed Thrills: A Way To Optimize Your Pages So They'll Download Faster

The vast majority of web pages are too fat which means they could stand to lose a few kilobytes. How's that?

If you're creating XHTML/HTML files that have needless markup then there too fat. If you're not optimizing your images so that your .gifs and .jpgs have the lowest possible file size then they're too heavy as well. In fact you should be looking at all of the file sizes of all the content a user downloads to view your web pages.

Why bother you say? Who cares? Doesn't everyone use a broadband connection? Aren't I concerned about something from a distant past?"

Not really. The process of reducing file size - optimization - has all sorts of benefits (some hidden) in addition to speeding up the download of your pages. And in many environments, home, work and places outside the U.S., Canada. and Europe broadband is still a dream.

The King Of Optimization is Andy King and he's the ruler of WebSiteOptimization.com.

• Try Andy's Web Page Analyzer. Copy and paste your URL and submit for analysis. The free service
  
  "...calculates page size, composition, and download time. The script calculates the size of individual elements and sums up each type of web page component. Based on these page characteristics the script then offers advice on how to improve page load time."
  
  The generated report can yield some eye popping results and will give you recommendations on how to optimize your submitted page.
  
  
• I recommend that you subscribed to Andy's newsletter, Optimization Week. It always has a Speed Tweak. Some of those topics have included "Sink The Splash Page" and "Crop Images Contextually."

We're all too busy but if you're a web designer or developer sign on to Andy's "Optimization Week." He's a great read and gets to his points!!