One of the most overlooked criteria for better page ranking is the load time of a website. Search engines tend to rank websites that load faster higher because a faster loading time means a better experience for the visitor. Therefore, when optimising your website, it is vital to ensure that every measure has been taken to decrease the load time of your website. Optimising your graphics such as video and images can reduce loading time immensely.

Image size is one of the first things that need to be viewed as images sizes can vary from a few kilobytes to many megabytes depending on your file type and compression. Where images should be converted to smallest file type without compromising the quality of the image. The smaller your images are, the faster your page will load. However, this does not mean that low quality images should be used, as optimisation of graphics is also for cosmetic purposes. Images should be cropped and edited to be flattering and fit in with the design of the website.

In terms of video, it is vital to ensure that it does not slow down the load time of a website – all means of optimisation should be explored to keep the size of the video to a minimum. Secondly embedding of videos should look appealing and invite users to view the video.

The user experience of a website is as much influenced by the load time as it is influenced by the look and feel of a website. Therefore, when optimising the graphics of website, it is an enjoyable time to ensure that the cosmetic side of the website is taken care of too. Ensure that images look high quality, that videos and gifs play properly, and that the graphics do not overpower the website.

Search Engine Optimization explained.

Keyword Assessment | Meta Data | Webmaster Tools | Google Analytics | Monthly Reporting | Robots.txt | .htaccess | Favicon | Site Map | Search Engines | Google Maps | Forms and E-mails | Footer Link | Google Search Engine | Picture Tagging | Directory Page | Social Media | Heading Tags | Indexed Pages | Robots | Sitemap | HTML Errors | Search Engine Errors | Broken Links | Pages and Content | Search Engines | Picture Tagging | Flash and iFrames | Hierarchy | Forms and Emails | Add Media | Static URLs | Descriptive URLs | Duplicate Content | Plagiarism Check | Positive Content | Negative Content | Character Coding | Downloadable Files | Optimize Graphics | Optimize Navigation | Incoming Links | Outgoing Links | Page Content | Meta Data | Rich Content | Reduce Bounce Rate | Social Media | Analyze Competitors | Website Security | 3rd Party Tracking