Put your site on a diet for 3 BIG FAT advantages!

Posted by Laura Bergells

January 25, 2007

If you have some big fat web pages (over 40k), put them on a diet today!

Make sure you get your web pages slim, skinny, and svelte! You will enjoy three major benefits right away.

Here’s the backstory:

I talked to a client today about significantly slimming down one of their enormous html pages (over 150K).

Hey, it happens. Those pounds creep up on us over the years, and so do those kilobytes from time to time! That’s why it’s a good idea to step on the scale, or review your file size to see if any of your files might be getting a wee bit bloated!

The strategy: I recommended splitting my client’s ONE HUGE page into SIX SMALLER linked pages. Each smaller page has a natural category break — kind of like chapters in a book.

Here are the three big fat advantages to this approach:

Better usability: it takes quite a while for a big fat page to load if a visitor isn’t using a fast internet connection (Your stats will tell you how many visitors use high-speed. Your stats will also show you that even high-speed users tend to abandon slow-to-load pages). Making several small pages from one huge page means that my client’s pages will load faster and his audience will enjoy a better browsing experience.
Better search engine ranking. Search engines tend to like sites with lots of linked, niched content. Each of my client’s 6 new pages will target one topic, instead of one page trying to handle every topic. Think of it: six different pages, each with different titles, tags, keywords, better keyword prominence, and more highly focused content. Those are the search engine optimization basics!
Better psychographic positioning. When visitors keep clicking to read every chapter, it shows that they are psychologically investing themselves in the site. When prospects spend more time actively absorbing content and clicking (instead of waiting for a page to load), they are more likely to take the next action step and make a purchase.

Happily, by looking at my client’s code, I was instantly able to remove some of the extra spacing, carriage returns, and line feeds. This alone slimmed the bloated file by a little over 10K — without changing the appearance of his monster page at all.

Now, a 153 pound person might like it I could push a button and make 10 pounds vanish: but code isn’t a person. Beyond instant code liposuction, this one mildly slimmed-down page is going to turn into 6 pages by the end of the month.

Moral of the story: take a look at the page sizes at your own site today. If they’re getting fat: it’s time to put ‘em on a diet! And if they’re still too fat, then break ‘em down!