14/04/2014
It happens over and over again... I look into a potential clients website and notice that the images are not optimized for web...
It's not uncommon that the front page images are whooping 3 Mb together (I've seen as bad as 20 MB) which is totally unnecessary. They are often easily optimized to less by 70-90% meaning the page loads 2-3 times slower than needed (taking HTML, CSS and scripts into account as well)
There are usually three different problems frequently occurring:
1. The images are saved in wrong format (PNG that should be JPG and vice versa or in some cases TIF, GIF or other formats that as a general rule should not be used online)
2. The images are to large size
Example: They are shown 300px wide on the website but the file is 1000px wide. This means 10 times(!) bigger file size (since area is squared).
3. The images are not properly (if at all) compressed
Example: JPGs usually can be compressed to 10-20% of the full file size without noticeable difference.
Example: PNGs can often be indexed (if not they are likely better saved as JPG), easily reducing the file size by 50-90%.
Manually optimizing images does not take long time but reduces the loading time of a webpage by 70-90%... Increasing the site speed by 2-3 times...
This is one (of many) important difference between a professional and a amateur web developer.
I think the reason this so frequently happens is that it's so easy to build a good looking website today with templates and tools like Wordpress and a online free site builders.
The average client (and too many designers) do not understand that good website development still need a bit of technical interest in how the web and Internet works.
IMPORTANT to understand... A Graphic Designer and a Web Developer is two TOTALLY different things (Some times one person know both occupations but that is far from always).
Designing for print and web are two TOTALLY different things.
If you are going to get a new website, make sure to spot the difference*.
* A graphic designer talks about the look/design (and possibly user interface and user friendliness)
* A web developer talks about best hosting solution, CDN, optimization, caching, pre-loads, load queue, speed, ease of maintenance, automatic backups, and other technical terms.
WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?
1. Long load times mean that many visitors gets frustrated which affect your business and brand negatively. Some just chose another website which they perceive is "better", often because of the speed.
2. Google measure and LOVE fast websites (and sites where visitors read many pages)... A fast website is good for your Google ranking and a slow one get penalized...
Stay ahead of your competition and make sure your website is as fast as it can be!
(There are many other [more or less simple] ways of increasing your website speed, but that's too much to mention here now)
