The Need For Speed

This site covers how to start a blog, build traffic and make money blogging. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

When it comes to first impressions, your blog has four seconds to load before the majority of new visitors decide not to bother reading it. That’s four seconds for full loading, by the way, and not merely part of your content filling the screen.

Speeding up a website takes work but it’s worth it. The hardest part, as Faulkner once said of good writing, is to “kill your darlings”. If you think that lagging javascript or cute little widget that makes your comment section take forever to load isn’t harming your blog, then perhaps you ought to think about all the comments you aren’t getting because of it. Ditto for any social networking widget that regularly causes slow page-load times. (Hint: watch your browser’s status bar to find the culprit easily.)

For a whole host of other ways to speed up your page load times check out this series from DailyBlogTips. It’s a long list — and one I’ll be working through myself — but it’s worth it.

Subscribe to Feed

Tagged in: page load times

• Timing Entries For Post Popularity
• There’s Always More To Learn About The Web
• How To Find A Good Hosting Company
• Easy Cash… Or Comment Trash
• Clean Up Comment URLs In One Click

2 Comments

Comment by Anne

2008-05-04 20:27:55

One of my favorite blogs takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to load and I’m about to stop visiting, even though I know it’s worth the wait. I’m wondering if I should be like a friend and point out that she’s got spinach in her teeth (it’s not somebody I know) or just let her figure it out.

You’ve probably got a manners blog out there somewhere and I should post this question there.
Annes last blog post..Fun Thing #1: Trip to Lake Lure

Reply to this comment

Comment by Kate

2008-05-05 10:54:44

“You’ve probably got a manners blog out there somewhere…”

Oh man, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time. Although it’s not a bad idea….

I’d tell her, but instead of the spinach-in-the-teeth approach I’d use the “is it just me?” tactic, maybe in her comment section. If she reads enough comments from others saying “Yeah, it takes forever to load for me, too” maybe she’ll do something about it.

Unless it’s me. In which case I prefer an email.

Reply to this comment

 

 

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.