Take a moment to clear your mind. Now go and look at your homepage and take a minute to evaluate it. Does it work for your prospective customers?

Most will arrive at your homepage and quickly scan through content. If they are interested in what they read and see they'll typically decide to click on a link that takes them to another page where they'll find more information. As they make that decision they'll be asking things like:

What do they do? Do they look professional? Whats in it for me? Do i have problem they describe? Are they talking directly to me? How can i get it?

Alternatively, if homepage hasnt interested them immediately then they'll leave just as quickly as they arrived, unlikely to return.

Your homepage is gateway to your website and plays a critical part in prospects visit. First impressions count. The success of your site depends on your homepage. Now, before we look at what a homepage should be, lets look at what it shouldnt be.

Image optimization significantly improves your site's effectiveness. Whether your success is measured in revenue per user, page views, unique visitors, or pure profit, accelerating your Web site makes a huge difference.

Part 1 of this article discussed when to use images for your web site and what image file formats to use on Web (www.isitebuild.com/imageoptimization1). Part 2 discussed how to optimize your images for Web. (www.isitebuild.com/imageoptimization2). Part 3 will present more ways to optimize your images so your web pages will be fast loading.

Studies show that a one-second improvement reduces click-aways up to 65%. Faster page views means more page views and a better user experience. This leads to higher user retention and therefore more revenue.

Here are a few ways this can be done:

Creating Thumbnails Make 2 copies of your large image in your favorite image editing software (Fireworks or Photoshop). Make a small “thumb-sized” version of your large image and put it on your first page. Put large version of your image on another page. Link small image to larger one. When visitors click on small image it will take them immediately to larger image.

Pre-load graphics If you want a large image to load fast, you can pre-load graphic on another page. Create a 1x by 1x pixel of larger image and insert it at bottom of an earlier page (it will appear as a dot and visitor won't even know it is there). The browser caches image. When visitor arrives on page with large image, it appears almost immediately.

Slicing This is where you divide a large graphic into smaller pieces. This keeps file size of images smaller enabling them to download faster. Slicing a graphic can also help with design and layout of your web site.