6 Top Tips on Reducing Bandwidth
If you’ve read my earlier post introducing web hosting and bandwidth you’ll already have a good idea why it makes sense to reduce the bandwidth that your site uses.
The first is the most obvious, using more bandwidth than your web hosting plan allows will either result in your site going offline until the end of the month or a hefty surcharge for any extra bandwidth you use above your allocation. Think of it like a bank overdraft, your host will let you use more than you have got but at a price! This ultimately forces you to upgrade to a bigger, more expensive hosting plan.
The second reason is just as important as the first, visitor convenience – as hard as it is for some people to believe it, not everyone is on broadband, there are a great many users who still use dial up and a high percentage of them are impatient; long loading sites often result in connection time-out, or the visitor just gives up and closes the browser. As a result you lose traffic, clients, and if your site is ads supported – money!
So, what can we do to reduce the data transfer for everyone’s benefit? Here are my ‘Top 6’ suggestions that everyone can use to bring their bandwidth usage down.
I hope this sheds some light into the whole bandwidth mystery for those struggling to come to terms with the terminology used. Remember, it is not an exact science and the more people you speak to, the more hints and tips you’ll pick up. No matter what level you rate yourself, you can do a lot worse than signing up to some webmaster forums to read and learn from other people’s mistakes and successes.
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