Website Speed Optimization: Images and Files

In the latest webinar of Theresa Baiocco (of ConversionMax), she talked about how to make conversion optimization work for your website, specifically for your landing pages. Speed may not be everything that you’d need to get success in conversion optimization, but it is definitely an important aspect of usability. Since creating a website is now easier to achieve with the aid of free web services, it is best to assume that the competition in the online realm is getting tougher day by day.

Since this is the case, you are in no place to be complacent about aspects of your site that may be dragging your success rate down. In conversion optimization, you need to improve or optimize three main elements to make sure that maximize your potential as a website. These elements include:

• Optimize Images
• Optimize Website Files
• Optimize Site Speed

Optimize Site Speed

Remember, even if you’ve got great ideas, websites that have faster loading pages can still overtake you. This is especially true since most people nowadays are never in the mood to waste time. If your page is too slow to load, your chances of getting heavy traffic decreases. In the like manner, Google Analytics have revealed that one of the factors that can fully optimize search engines is loading time. This means that content or web design alone cannot do a lot for your site once you neglect the importance of website optimization. Therefore, a holistically healthy webpage means that you have taken care of all the aspects of your page—and yes, this includes the oh-so-tedious website optimization processes. As mentioned in this link:

Web page loading speed is the most crucial part of a site’s usability and SEO. Google considers page speed to be one of the 200 ranking factors that influence a website’s position in organic search results and is known to enrich user-experience. – Boris Demaria

Optimize Images

You may be a big fan of huge and colorful images, and since we are living in a world where pictures play a crucial role, I totally understand where you are coming from. As a matter of fact, the virtual audience loves images too. However, how you optimize your images can greatly affect your site’s loading time. Google really likes fast sites, and

[Tweet “if your page takes approximately 500 milliseconds slower to load, this would equate to a 20% decline in traffic”]

This is definitely bad for business, and I know you are not looking forward to this kind of drop too.

Nonetheless, optimizing your images can help your site speed up. Basically, you have a lot of options with regard to image optimization, and one that could really help is the Sprite tool. One of the most popular and user-friendly Sprite tools is Stitches. Conversely, if you are not into using Sprites, you can also use Photoshop since it could help you fully compress your images. JPG is usually the best format to use, except if you need transparency.

Optimize Website Files

Once the user clicks your site, your domain sends a request from your web host. Only after this will your page start to load. Since this is the case, your website files or data are being transferred first before the user can fully see your site. This means that heavier website files or data equates to slower loading time. Now, since we are aiming for usability here, it is best that you compress your files so that they can be transferred easily to the web host and the user. You can use tools for data compression to make this possible.

In the like manner, there are some areas in your webpage that can be fully optimized, and these include elements such as JavaScript, CSS, database and webpages with PHP, HTML, etc.

As ConversionMax has shown, a lot of web masters neglect the importance of optimizing the aforementioned areas, and this is a mistake that you must avoid. Remember that keeping your page optimized and light can help you gain enormous benefits. If you really want to turn your page into a profit-making company, optimize what you can and make sure to keep your software up-to-date. If you want to find out more about this, you can check out the entire webinar here.