Remember that you have just five seconds to explain your value proposition to users when they enter to your site. This is one of the most followed web design rule. The back button is the most widely used command on the web. If you don’t answer a user’s needs right away, he or she will click “back” and exit your site. Make sure your site features compelling copy that draws readers in and gives them reasons to stay.
The first five seconds can last an eternity. Even if a person says they have changed their opinion or interpretation, it still affects their sentiments towards your website at an implicit level. It is much less effort to capture the users as they land on your page than to have to physically hustle people. Make the most out of your opportunity.
If your web page contains an excessive amount, or poorly formatted (the size of your thumbnail but half a megabyte big), graphics, its loading times will suffer as a result. The fact that the onscreen image is the size of a postage stamp means nothing, because the original image is still loaded into that space, and if the original image is the size of a bedspread, then that’s the amount of loading space/time necessary to put it on the visitor’s screen.
Web Designers sometimes forget that not everyone’s Internet connection is as fast as theirs, and what loads in a flash on their test-browsers, may take long enough to make a sandwich on someone else’s machine. Speaking of Flash, intros which take 30 seconds to load and cannot be skipped or, worse still, Flash-based navigation systems which take 10 to 15 seconds to respond are definitely out for the same reason.
