Everyone hates slow websites. Today’s world is all about speed and making things faster and easier to use. Due to this, if a page doesn’t load quickly, impatience will probably drive people to click away from that site and move on to the next. This is unfortunate for first time web builders or even those who haven’t gotten the memo yet, “speed is key”. 

So how does a web builder make their website faster? One word: Page Size Optimization. Okay, maybe three words.

In order to begin this process one must start at the very foundation of the page. Multiple CSS files, data heavy images (etc) are all products of a slow website. You can combine Multiple CSS files through a process called linking. When one links it allows for an easier management system as well as combining similar style elements into a single large file. This large file can then be paired with a CSS compiler like LESS in order to create a smaller/faster CSS file for a website.

Though, the worst of the two is probably data heavy images, because images make up a majority of the total web page size. That doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause, there are ways to compress the images in a website without losing the original quality. Just like with the CSS files, compressors can reduce the metadata from your images and minimize the overall page size.

What type of file should be used for website images?

Well, there are three types of files that can be used: JPG,GIF, and PNG. A JPG file is used for still photography, A GIF is used for simple animations/flat color, and a PNG is used for icons or to allow your images to have better transparency. Unlike the other two, a GIF has a limited amount of colors that can be chosen from so it won’t work with displaying more complex designs. Knowing the uses for these types of image files is important, because if one were to take a photo with their camera and format it to a PNG the file size would be much larger than it would’ve been if converted to a JPEG. 

By this point, it should be clear that in order to optimize a web page, file sizes need to be smaller. This helps everything run more efficiently and also helps out users who stumble upon a site using their phone.