Faster Loading Shops: Web Page Size Analysis
Making Web pages load as fast as possible should be top priority for all webmasters without regards to Web site's size or type of content. Making Web pages load fast increases positive user experience. The user gets quicker response and might become more likely to view additional pages and return more often, but there are more things to consider which is of no lesser importance.
Recently the word spread that Google may be considering page load time as a factor in its page ranking algorithm. This means that the time has come for webmasters to take a look at ways to improve page load time if they have not done so already.
Online shops exist in a fierce competitive environment where merchants compete for each sale, not only with each other, but also with large enterprises and gigantic comparison shopping engines. Surviving and even thriving in this environment is an achievement. Online shops that improve page load time up to the point where it is similar as large online mega stores will increase their users' positive experience from visiting their shop. They will almost certainly also add to their bottom line since improvements in page load time means in most cases less data sent from their servers since Web pages and associated files such as images will become smaller. Do online shops need to improve page load time? It is time to look at some data to find out.
| Document Size vs. Textual Elements: Average Values (char) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | General Merchandise | General Merchandise SE | Prominent SE Position |
| HTML Document Length | 32578.1 | 40206.6 | 34754.0 |
| Text Content Length | 3141.3 | 3690.5 | 4416.3 |
| Whitespace Savings | 1120.7 | 1503.5 | 1423.5 |
| Pure Textual Content | 2129.9 | 2326.9 | 3175.1 |
The data table and chart above shows data from two samples of online shops, one is having prominent positions within search engine results while the other may or may not have favorable search engine positions. The third is a large sample of Web sites having favorable search engine positions within results. The table shows that textual content is less than 10% of the document length and pure text content only 5-6%. This is much lower ratio than is in the third column. This shows a lot of room for improvements.
| Document Size vs. Image and Textual Content: Average Values | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | General Merchandise | General Merchandise SE | Prominent SE Position |
| HTML Document Length (char) | 32578.1 | 40206.6 | 34754.0 |
| Text Content Length (char) | 3141.3 | 3690.5 | 4416.3 |
| Images Size (bytes) | 193278.3 | 201385.6 | 124384.1 |
The second data table and chart shows the same samples as above where document length and text content length is compared with the average size of images. This again shows a lot of room for improvement.
According to the samples of online shops they spend considerable more kilobytes on image sizes than the sample in the third column. This is understandable since online shops need to show photos of products and impress visitors with nice looking graphics, but there are many things online shops can do to make images load faster. Some optimization ideas include using Ajax technology to control image loading and display, decrease image resolution as much as possible, use CSS styles for visual effects such as borders and frames, use CSS sprites for graphic decorations and product images as well and use Flash presentations wisely.
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