| Have you ever visited a website where you had to | | | | amounts of bandwidth. If your video gets |
| wait for it to load before reading the information? | | | | downloaded by hundreds of people at the same time |
| Google has now included site speed as one of its | | | | it may shut down the server so your website will not |
| ranking factors. This means slow loading sites may be | | | | be accessible. |
| ranked lower in the search engines than fast loading | | | | 4. Place CSS and JavaScript in external files |
| ones. Check the loading time of your website by | | | | Many websites use JavaScript to create dynamic |
| goggling "site speed checker." This will provide list the | | | | navigation menus. All the JavaScript code is often |
| websites where you can insert your URL and check | | | | included within the web page causing it to load slowly. |
| the loading time. | | | | To speed up the loading time place your JavaScript in |
| 5 ways to decrease your website loading time | | | | an external file and reference the file code within the |
| 1. Check for HTML errors | | | | HTML. |
| Run your web pages through an HTML validator to | | | | Instead of placing all the CSS code within your web |
| find code errors. HTML errors often cause your them | | | | page place it in an external style sheet and attach it |
| to render incorrectly in the major browsers and | | | | to your web page by coding the file into your HTML. |
| increase their loading time. Having clean code will also | | | | This will reduce the file size of your web page and |
| make it easier to return to the original document | | | | increase its loading speed. |
| should you add a design element that causes errors. | | | | 5. Use cascading style sheets (CSS) for design |
| 2. Reduce the size of your images | | | | Limit the use of tables for the design of your web |
| Large images will increase the weight of your pages. | | | | pages because it takes longer for browsers to read |
| Instead create thumbnails that link to the larger | | | | through them. CSS creates less code than tables thus |
| image. Don't include too many images on one web | | | | increasing site speed. You can also control the order |
| page because it will increase the overall file size of | | | | of the items that appear on the screen. For example |
| that page and slow down its loading time. | | | | you can code the content to appear before any |
| 3. Limit the use of flash or video | | | | large images that may load slowly. |
| Flash and video files are much larger than image files. | | | | If you follow the 5 points mentioned above you'll |
| Often a visitor needs to wait a while before these | | | | have a clean, lean website your visitors will love to |
| files load and appear on the web page. Keep in mind | | | | visit. |
| that showing videos on your website can use large | | | | |