Please note this article was first published in 06 Aug 2009. Its content may now be out of date. We recommend taking a look at more recent website building blog posts or check out our comprehensive support pages. If you are looking for information on our 14 day free website builder trial we have a large number of webpages that guide you throug the process.
When you are talking about websites - if they're well placed, good quality, well optimised and in the correct format, then absolutely YES!
Site navigation, interactivity, content, delivery, and a multitude of other issues affect a user's perception of a website. However, images are probably the most obvious part of a great website build. Imagine a website, or other media such as magazines, newspapers or TV or billboard adverts without any images……..!?
Good quality, carefully compressed images, can add to the appeal and instructive qualities of a website. Equally, poor quality images, which take far too long to load can affect peoples perception of the entire site and indeed the company or business behind it. How often have you opened a web page and found yourself waiting for ages for the images to load or worse.. got impatient and gone elsewhere?
Your DotGO website editor is designed to compress large files. However, we recommend using an image-editing programme to resize your images to roughly the correct height and width, then compressing their file size and saving to the correct format before uploading to your webpages to reduce the load time and maintain the best possible quality.
As a web builder, choosing the correct image for the job is an important part of the design. The first area to look at is FORMAT. One of the more common mistakes, which lead to excessive images sizes, is people using the wrong file format for the job. In general Gif images tend to be good for simple illustrations such as logos, cartoons or animated images whereas JPEG images are generally chosen for complex images or photographs. To go into this a little further, here are the three main contenders:
Gifs should be used for; simple line drawings, shapes, small icons, graphics with large blocks of a single colour, i.e. nothing too complex. GIFs are 'loss-less', which means they does not lose quality causing pixilation or blur. The GIF format is a popular choice for the Internet as they can be compressed to reduce the file sizes of images without losing image quality. GIFs can also be animated, another reason for their popularity. Most animated banner ads are GIFs. You’ll need an animation program to make your own animations. GIFs also allow transparency, which means you can set images to allow the background colours of your web page to show through the image, so appearing to be a part of your website background rather than placed on top - as you can see here.
JPGs should be used for photographs. The JPEG format is capable of displaying millions of colours and the complex blends of hues that occur in photographic images. Compression is achieved by ‘forgetting’ certain details about the image, hence the loss of quality. For the Internet, a compression setting of about 60% will result in the optimum balance of quality and file size but it is worthwhile playing around with the compression % to get your image just right.
This third and lesser known format was invented for reasons, which are now redundant, namely, in response to a now expired licensing scheme. The creators of PNG were aiming for a format, which could beat the GIF in every way. You can achieve noticeably smaller file sizes with PNGs and they also save their colour data more efficiently. The PNG format has the same transparency qualities but Gif still outperforms PNG where animations are concerned, so stick to Gif for your animated pics. Using PNG-8 instead of GIFs will however lower the file sizes of your images so they are a good choice of format for all your simple static images.
Once you have prepared your images with the best format and size for your webpages, you can upload them onto your pages using the RED "Insert Image" button in your website editor. In the Image Properties window, you can then "fine tune" the size, align; left, middle or right, add a choice of borders and set the space around your image so that it sits perfectly within the text of your page.
You can go back to Image Properties as often as you like to make changes by simply right clicking the image and choosing "Image Properties" from the drop down menu. This ability to go back at any time to "fine tune" can be found in several areas of the DotGO editing system and is just one of many innovative features, which give you the control and tools to build a first-class website.
We'd love these blog pages to become a handy forum for all DotGO Web Builders, so please add your comments or questions and let's get chatting!!
Please remember, this article was first published 06/08/2009. The content may be out of date and you cannot post comments any more. Please check out our new blog.
We have been in business since 2003. Back when the founders of Facebook were still in college, we were writing code and helping our users create great websites.
If you need help, why not check out our huge selection of videos, step-by-step guides and knowledge papers.
We have helped many thousands of our customers create great looking websites. Take a look at a few examples, created using our website builder.
These days, websites without background videos run the risk of appearing old-fashioned. Even dinosaurish,
There’s nothing wrong with dinosaurs, or with looking like one. Dinosaurs are cool. Unless they’re chasing you of course.
But our new background videos have landed, exploded and changed the game. They have wiped out the old standards for beautiful websites, and have replaced them with a new standard that will leave all other websites looking like fossils.
Luckily, both our existing clients and our new ones have access to this brilliant new feature we’ve introduced, and we’d like to share its benefits with you today.
A superhero is only super because he or she stands out amongst the crowd. If we were a planet of flying, teleporting, time-freezing super-strong aliens, then we wouldn’t think there was anything super about us. When it comes to using formatting methods such as bold, italics, capitals or centering, all of these little text-enhancing superheroes will only stand out if they are used sparingly, in the right place, and when absolutely necessary…
Reviews, testimonials, recommendations – we all seek reassurance in them. We might even skip past the good ones just to see if there are any bad ones.Other people are sources of information for us. They can tell us whether this product or service is actually any good or not. Reading their testimonials builds trust in your business.
If I have multiple domain names, will my website rank better on the search engines? Will I be more likely to draw in extra traffic? Will my website become a supercharged powerhouse bursting with domain names that will become a magnet for new business? The answer might not be quite as positive as you would expect, but hopefully we can answer your questions during this article…
Choosing a domain name for your new business may not be as simple as you think. Most people just use their company name, but unless your branding is well recognised, this may work against you…
Is it possible for your business website to look too good? Too polished? Too slick? Too posh?
Perhaps it depends on how slick and posh you already are.
“If a customer fills out a form and adds their email address, what can I do with it?” This is a terrible question, asked by non-GDPR compliant cavemen and cavewoman who still think it’s OK to treat other people’s info as if it’s their own…
You are building a GDPR-friendly email list, and now you want to start sending out newsletters, the professional way. Where do you start?
“Don’t sell your product. Solve their problems.” Mark Cuban’s wise words sum up the art of selling – it is about helping people, fixing problems and improving the lives of others…
iF we’re honest, not many people will accuse you of clownery for not having a proper business email address. But they might not call you professional either…
Building a professional website to grow your business should be easy and seamless from start to end. We offer to build your business website for you, in four easy steps…
When July 2018 hits, Google Chrome will make sure a strong warning will pop up on any website that has not yet updated from “http” to “https”. The warning will include something along the lines of “Website Not Secure”. Here’s how to avoid it.
We are the DotGO: where everything is included and everything is managed for you, all at no extra cost.
We design websites to grow your business and wow your customers.
We are a UK company filled with passionate website designers and clever writers.
Friendly, professional and fast customer service is at the heart of everything we do. Our designers and unique technology make your website quick, responsive and secure, giving you the best chance of ranking well on Google.
If you need a shop, our own powerful ecommerce platform integrates beautifully. We train you to use our simple tools to update your website yourself. Our UK support team are on hand to provide sensible support and advice whenever you need it. We even power your professional email service, so you stay in contact with your customers by phone, tablet or computer.
Oh, and the best bit? It's cheaper than you may think, and we can get started right now.