Losing Weight For Christmas

Fat cat or sleek feline?

Yuletide approaches and, unless you’re a non-conformist, that means two things: an empty bank account from buying stupid presents nobody really wants and a full stomach from all the rich food. But what about your blog and web site? Are they looking a little overweight, too?

Finding a balance is a tough job - especially between content and income for people who use their online presence to generate revenue. Go too far in one direction and it looks like a zen buddhist designed the site; too far in the other direction and the pages look more like the jumble of stuff in one of those “everything under £1″ shops.

Each element of your site is an ingredient that makes up the visitor’s meal. Some are healthy and light, like virtual fruit and veg: a thumbnail graphic, a top posts list, a navigator pane, a text ad or three. They contain calories, of course, but your visitors get a valuable return.

Then there’s the fat. Heavy, bandwidth-consuming ingredients like Flash ads, video, 2Mb backdrops in BMP format, music and all those “amusing” widgets. They’re loaded with cholesterol and heavy with sugar. Each one is 90% of an average web-surfer’s recommended daily intake. Visitors may read a site like that, but then they’ll feel burdened and sick from all the long sugars. They’ll just want to sit and watch The Wizard Of Oz for the fifty-seventh time.

So why not put your site on a diet this year? Take a good look at everything on the page and consider just how long it’s going to take to load – especially for someone without an 8Mbit connection.

Do you really need the news ticker? The custom widgets? The big graphics? All those Flash ad blocks? The “cool” background music?

If it isn’t adding value for your visitors, throw it out.