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How often have you waited, impatiently, for your browser to pull in next website? Too many times, probably.
Many of these slow-poke sites may be worth seeing, but how long are you prepared to wait? Probably no more than 7 to 10 seconds, which is what most say.
Now, you've maybe seen or read a lot about improving loading time for your website. And, you may even be saying to yourself now, "Oh, no...not another guru trying to tell me what to do!" Well, in first place, I'm no guru (very few can legitimately claim that accolade) and secondly, I cannot tell you what to do.
I can only relate what I did, and improvement I achieved. It's up to you to do something, if you want to...that's your choice! ;-)
Firstly, website in question - http://submissionjunction.com - used to load, at off-peak times, on my computer (an ageing 133 mHz, P1, 32MEG RAM, 56k modem) in around 15-20 seconds.
To make things crystal clear, I'll define load time thus:
Being elapsed time from moment that ENTER key is depressed to moment that first information appears on screen (purists would argue that load time is actually more precise, and I agree. For surfers on web, however, this definition will suffice).
Note that I'm not counting appearance of BACKGROUND information within that elapsed time, e.g a tiled .gif, although some may; BACKGROUND, after all, is not strictly information, although it does indicate activity.
Now, a load time of 15-20 seconds is way too slow, and with peak hours and heavy traffic, I ran increased risk that people clicked away.
I wanted a load time of 4-6 seconds in off-peak and no more than 10 seconds during very heaviest traffic times.
This is how I did it:
1. The banner and headlines, that I want to appear on screen first, are placed immediately after BODY statement, and before anything else. This is information I want prospects to see quickly, so that I can pique their curiosity and perhaps retain their interest.
2. Formatting, at this stage, is confined to one small TABLE and centering information: one banner, one small animation and three headlines. This is important; there is no fancy or additional coding at this point.