If there is one element of your company web site that takes up a large portion of its load time, it is the images. Unlike video, images are essential to the functionality and attractiveness of a web site. Videos can take notoriously long to load, but they are often not a concern for visitors. However, images are more often than not the bread and butter of a web page or site’s attractiveness. The longer images take to load, the more likely the visitor will seek better places to spend less of their time.

The Numbers Game
Since images are essential to a web site’s success, the obvious issues are how many images to include and how big they should be. Smaller images may load faster, but they may not suit the purpose of their presence on the page. Larger images can take a significant time to load, which will make a visitor impatient. What is worse is when the large image finally does load, the visitor sees no purpose it waiting so long. Ouch.

Purpose in Placement
So, to maximize the efficiency and load times of images, review your web pages and web site and determine the purpose of each image. The ones you want the visitor to see or click on should be more prominent both in size and in their location in the web design. Remember that web pages are not like books, even when there is text present. Web pages are scanned by people, and they are looking for something visual that will meet their need for visiting the web site. Without purpose, images are nothing more than fancy window dressing.

Too Much Scrolling
If there is one thing users hate, it is scrolling to see the basic content of a web page. Even with tablets, scrolling to see essential content is annoying. Placing an image on a page that is partially visible on a normal display is the worst of many possibilities. The user will have to scroll to see the purpose of the image, which makes zero design sense. Whether you’re dealing with text or images, be sure to place your content where it can be clearly seen and have a definite purpose.

There are web sites that have the site map at the very bottom of the page. This may be necessary when the site is very large, but when considering load time, having a site map may not even be necessary, especially if the user has to scroll to get to it. Smaller sites should logically have shorter load times because the amount of information to be accessed or the number of products to be sold are minimal. Especially with mobile technology, loading pages that get to the point without scrolling are more likely to be successful.

Other suggestions are compressing your web site data, reducing the amount of white space and choosing the best compression format for your images. The key is to mix and match the various options and discover what works best for your web site. Companies with established brands such as Apple will have people being more patient with their load times since they are expecting something worth waiting for. However, if you do not fall into this category, it is best to take a critical look at your use of image size and placement and proceed accordingly.