Floor it! Let's get outta here!
The success of your web site will depend mostly on content, but even if your message is brilliant, it will fail miserably if visitors must wait too long for your page to load! There are several things that contribute to quick load times, some of them you will have no control over. When a web surfer with a slow connection and a tired computer visits your pages, they may be willing to wait for a while longer than the guy with the latest technology. But one way to gaurantee that you will lose your visitors is a slow loading graphics intensive page with more show than go!

More and more web surfers are becoming aware of the availability of high-speed internet connection like DSL and Cable Modems. This is often referred to as "Broadband" internet access, available through your phone company or cable television provider. Once everyone has access to affordably priced broadband connectivity, you can ignore the need to create a fast-loading web page for your visitors. But until broadband is universally available and universally USED, be aware that there will be many visitors that will simply leave your site if it fails to load in the first few seconds!

There is a debate among web page designers over the use of "Frames" in site design because there are some web surfers out there with older browser versions that don't support that feature. (A much stronger reason to avoid framed web pages is the penalty paid in search engine positioning! But that is a lesson for another day.) We all love to upgrade to the latest software whenever possible but the simple fact is that some people either can't use a newer browser due to hardware limitations or are just ignorant of the availability of free upgrades of Netscape and Internet Explorer. We believe your target market should determine your site design in most cases anyway. If you believe that your customers will use and enjoy a particular feature, then by all means, use it on your web pages. We recently visited a site that told us our technology was too outdated to look at bicycles! That is a serious mistake! Don't alienate your audience by insisting that they use the newest technology!

"How do I steer this crazy thing?" There is nothing more annoying than landing on a site with poor navigational tools! A primary concern of every web site should be to help visitors maneuver easily through their pages! There should be links to every page from every page! Until your site gets beyond twenty pages, this should be easy to do with simple text links at the top and bottom of every page. Larger sites may require a "SiteMap" page to link to all of the areas of the domain. Assume that to begin with, your site will simply have links to every page from every other page. Links can be simple page titles like those at the bottom or arrows and labled buttons, like those at right, but they should not be hidden or at all hard to find. One convention of page navigation is to offer the links at the bottom of every page so that a visitor can click on a link to take them to the next page without needing to scroll back up again to find them.

One of the most critical elements of a quick loading page is using small graphic files. Elements should consist of important stuff like your company logo and a few key features like your corporate colors or identity graphics. Not just art for art's sake! You'll get much more mileage out of information, that is text, than you will out of flashing and blinking animated graphics everywhere! Unless the sole purpose of your web site is graphics like one of our clients at "MadeOfMoney.com" then it is best to limit the artwork. Textured backgrounds and custom graphic text links can dramatically slow download times as well. If you must use lots of graphic files at least warn your visitors on your home page of possible slow load times!