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It’s not enough to attract visitors to your blog or website. You have to keep them here long enough to teach, sell, inform or otherwise get whatever it is you want out of them in the first place (for me, it’s you to read AND acknowledge that what I wrote resonated with you in some fashion i.e. leave me a comment)
I’ve worked long and hard to make pretty graphics to entice people to look, but having those graphics slow the loading of my page down is going to drive visitors away rather than pull them in farther.
I was reading an article from Site Pro News about this very thing this week. It was written by Heather Coleman a noted graphics artist who helps virtual assistants, coaches and other professionals online bring visual impact and depth to their products.
In this article, she makes 10 salient points about web graphics that are worthy of passing along.
Take this photo of Harley parts assembled into this rather attractive motorcycle. The picture is worthy of being someone’s desktop wallpaper!
I’ve used several of Heather’s points to bring it to you in a fashion that doesn’t slow down the loading of the page.
I’ve made the image a thumbnail version and linked it to it’s larger version that’s stored on my server. You can see the smaller, faster loading version and then, if you want to save it to use as a desktop wallpaper, you can click the image and it will load a new page with the original sized image that you can right click and save to your own computer.
I’ve reduced the file size by optimizing the image. Using her suggested optimization setting, I saved it at 60% optimization which still gives you the bright colors but doesn’t blur the picture or pixelate it.
I’ve brought it to you in the best format for this type of image — jpeg. This format allows that cool reflection to stay detailed and sharp. Other formats would be gif which is commonly used for small images such as icons as well as for animated images, and png which supports transparency and layers. And speaking of animated images, golly gee don’t overload your pages with them! They’ll give your vistiors convulsions!
Please note that older browsers don’t support png formats so it’s a good idea to know the browser that the majority of your viewers use — you guys overwhelmingly use Firefox, so I feel pretty safe in using png formatted files whenever I have a graphic that needs transparency to it.
Don’t forget to use the alt and title tags on your image! Not only is that good for SEO, but it actually helps keep your visitor who’s waiting for that image to load in his browser! Knowing it’s coming makes him curious enough to stick around while it loads. Along with this tip is to use the size attributes for your images. By using those, the browser knows how to render the rest of the page. Leave them off and it has to wait for those images to load before it can render the text! Who wants to look at a blank page for 10 seconds! While you’re at it, size them correctly! Just setting the size attributes to a smaller display doesn’t make the file size any less and it will still take as long for the image to load. By resizing the image in your graphics program, you’ll not only accomplish that file size reduction but speed up that page load time.
I limit the number of graphics you see on a page. You’re going to get the graphics that come with my theme, but each post usually only has one graphic in it. While there have been some exceptions to that general rule, the one regarding file size is one I never ignore.
Heather also mentions image slicing. I don’t actually see this in practice a lot and have personally only done it once and I had a specific purpose in mind that wasn’t really about faster load times for the site. Another thing she mentions that I also have never done and am not sure I’ve seen much of it either is progressive loading of images. This is a setting you can choose when optimizing your image which has the image gradually come up to it’s full detail. This doesn’t actually make the image load faster, but like that alt and title tag, gives your visitor a hint of things to come.
I have another little tip of Heather’s used for the entire site and that’s caching. I use a WordPress plugin called SuperCache to keep the files cached on the server so that it loads faster for you.
So now you know how to make your blog not only more attractive to your readers — it’s a well known fact that graphics increase the length of time your visitors stay on your site — but now you won’t turn them off by jerky animations, bloated images that load slowly and pages that remain blank for any length of time.
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Tags: graphics, image optimization, SEO, SEO
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November 1st, 2008 at 8:48 am
i am not into designing or digging into graphics. i don’t have ordinary talents to that field. my blog was made by my sister who she is quite skilled on graphics. i envy those expert on graphics only then my interest is least.It is my wish to learn but until now still had not the chance even the basic:( I will surely share this one to my sister.
Happy Halloween to you Margaret!:)
fit4all´s last blog post..A Taste of Blogging
November 1st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I’m also not a programming geek. Sometimes it’s hard to decided between monetizing and SEO, because I am still learning both, hehe. But, tks for your advice. Salaam.
Sofhal Jamil´s last blog post..Icy Bird Nest
November 1st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
@Glorie — you don’t really have to be “deep into graphics” in order to utilize them to make your posts more interesting. There are several free programs available to do the simple things of resizing and optimizing (most notably GIMP and IRFRAN). And then the other stuff I talked about is almost inherent in blogging platform software to a certain extent (the sizing and allowing you to add alt tags and titles when you upload the image), so don’t be intimidated by these tips!
@Jamil no need to be a programmer — I’m certainly not one. Monetizing and SEO go hand in hand. The more your site is optimized for the search engines, the more money you will make.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 7:24 am
I wandered on to your blog from Ken Armstrong’s. Your thoughts (in your latest post) echo some I have been having recently. It’s all good, sound advice, but thanks for putting it all together in one place… not sure about the splicing though.
Dave King´s last blog post..Elaine
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:59 am
@Dave — all splicing does is chop the picture into small bits that make it easier for the browser to load as they are all very small files. If you don’t get the html just right, it can seriously mess with your image, though, so that’s not a tip for the faint hearted HTML coder.
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