4.Reduce color palette. Many images have millions of colors so first thing that you need to do is reduce colors to 256. You will lose some depth with this.

5. Save file in a standard format. JPEG is most common for photos and you can compress image with a JPEG for further reduction in file size. It’s not unusual to see GIF or PNG as well. Remember that with a 56k connection a 150k file will take 20 seconds to load. If you’re creating a web page every photo that you add will add to time it takes to download all of images. If you keep images small in size smaller resolution will not be as obvious.

Copyright 2004 Kelly Paal

When I had her change it to a single page mini-site, which did nothing but sell book, her sales went up to 20-30 per month.

Selling MANY products

If you are selling lots of products, you need a catalog site. Don't try to pretend you're an informational site. What visitors will want most is easy, clear navigation so they can quickly find exactly products that would best suit them. And, they want a simple, reliable, and secure ordering setup.

If you also have physical sites ("clicks & mortar"), you may do even better with a site that does nothing but offer discount coupons!

Example: A "clicks and mortar" department store built a full, wonderful website -- with lots of info and helpful tips. But they didn't see any increase in visitors to their stores. Then they ruthlessly axed most of content on their site- shrinking it to a site that mainly offered discount coupons for particular merchandise. The result? Traffic increased dramatically -- at physical store AND at website. Most important -- their sales went up.

Thinking about designing your own website?

Just remember that when people are searching for a product, that's what they want to see. Don't divert them with tips and hints and other copy that can make them forget what they wanted in first place. They probably did a search to find your site. Give them a chance to buy what they were searching for -- from you!