Logos, Images, Backgrounds, and Icons

According to Shortcut to Internet Millions Jeff Paul says, these usually are the things that slow down page loading.

Logos – Jeff Paul says in Shortcut to Internet Millions, your site should be professional but it doesn’t require a big fat log graphic. Most people don't care about your logo as much as YOU do. They want to know “what benefit you have to offer them” and how can you help them “solve their problem”. You should keep your logo if you are going to use one to about one-third of the top of the page. Either centered or off to the left with a compelling headline along side, or directly under. You should always have a caption with a picture, this is an old direct response principle. The file byte size of the Logo should be no larger than 6K, and smaller is better.

Backgrounds – According to Shortcut to Internet Millions Jeff Paul thinks, plain backgrounds work best. White, or off-white are still the most popular. Backgrounds with a left hand margin present a professional image with the added benefit of making the text easier to read -- since the lines are shorter and more resemble a magazine's familiar format. Background Images can be used but they should be no larger than 3K.

Images - Only used if they are essential to the offer. According to Shortcut to Internet Millions, Jeff Paul says a product picture could be classified as essential depending on the product. If you are selling a car, the visitor will want to see a picture of the car and the picture's purpose is to make the site visitor contact you. It is obvious that they probably won’t buy the car from your site so the action is to start a dialogue by contacting you. The “direct response” you are looking for in this case is e-mail or phone call. All of your images should be geared to motivate your site visitor to take one of those two very specific actions.

Jeff Paul says according to Shortcut to Internet Millions, here are some file “byte size” guidelines from our programmer.

Under 10K - best
10K - 20K - acceptable if the picture is really important
20K - 30K - the picture better be damn important
Over 30K - find a way to make it smaller or put a thumbnail and link to bigger picture.

Icons – According to Shortcut to Internet Millions Jeff Paul says, these should be tiny, whenever possible under 1K; and seldom larger than 3K.

By the way, Jeff Paul says in Shortcut to Internet Millions, you can find tons of INTERNET graphics professionals. Test them by having them create great graphics that enhance the image and load fast.

In Shortcut to Internet Millions Jeff Paul says, when possible re-use the same background, logo, icons, and images throughout your site. The way a computer works is that it stores the images on the visitor’s computer while he’s looking at the web page. That means as they move through your site, the next web page that uses a previously viewed graphic will load faster because the graphic will already be saved to their computer for viewing.

Another guideline from our programmer – According to Shortcut to Internet Millions Jeff Paul says, the overall byte size of your page, with text and all other components should be no larger than 20K - 30K. These are only guidelines to shoot for.

Obviously, Jeff Paul says in Shortcut to Internet Millions, some “picture dependent” sites cannot be designed within these guidelines. Just make sure every picture is essential to your offer and you have made every effort to optimize the page's loading speed.

Jeff Paul says in Shortcut to Internet Millions, to just always be asking yourself…. “do I really need this graphic?”