We all know what it's like to wait for a page to load. Using Netscape, the browser won't allow you to see the rest of the page until it has finished loading. So the page may go on forever, and you don't know how long you'll be waiting. Some sites cram all of their content onto their first (and sometimes only) page. Simply linking to more pages or organizing into categories would help tremendously. Forethought about your site is crucial and when someone first sees your page they'll know if you cared enough to think it over.

If you're having trouble getting people to return to your site, visit the site yourself and time how long it takes. If it weren't your own site would you wait that long?

How to trim the fat and get your site running smoothly?

1. If you have Photoshop, compress some of your images. Open the image and "Save As" and when the dialog box appears asking the compression amount, use a low number. Compare the original to several of the ones you compressed and see which one is the same quality as the original.

2. Note the size of all of the files you have on each and every page. None of them should take more than 25 seconds to load or exceed 45Kb unless the visitor has a choice as to whether they view it. This would include a link to a video clip. It's one thing to want the viewers to experience sounds, large pictures, and animations, it's another to force them. If you have something that does exceed these, consider making them smaller images, replacing the sound with a quick-loading midi, or using them on a subpage.

3. Make certain you are using thumbnails in picture galleries. (See my September 1999 article on "Thumbnails That Aren't")