Page Size

[vijayvasu]

Hello Mozers,

What is the best page size ( or the max page size ie KB ) for a home page or a 2nd level page.

Thank you - I appreciate you looking at this question.

Vijay

[Matt-Williamson]

There is no set answer for this in relation to a specific size - Google released some statistics a while ago and the average page size was 320kb, I remember reading. What I would say though is that you need to concentrate on load times, so make your page as small as possible whilst serving the content how you want it to be, so it loads quickly. Check how quickly you pages load using Google Webmaster Tools as an indicator - though remember this is taking an average from a sample of visits.

And here is a link to a YouMoz post that is very helpful in guiding you through optimizing your page speed - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/optimizing-page-speed-actionable-tips-for-seos-and-web-developers

Hope this helps.

[DougRoberts]

It can also depend on the user expectation, the type of content you're delivering and the nice/demographic you're targeting.

If you're running a site to support education in Africa, you would probably want to make sure the site is optimised for lower band-width connections.

If someone clicks on a link expecting a graphically rich, interactive site then they'll probably be prepared to wait a little longer. (Such as a high-quality images of the week page)

Also, remember that this is going to vary from device to device. No mobile visitor is going to thank you for trying to download gigabytes of data on a page!

As Matt says, keep an eye on your page load speed, look at where your visitors are abandoning your site to see if it's likely that page load times are an issue.

Understand the who your page is aimed at and the technologies/platforms that they are using to consume your content.

On the flip side, there's no point having a page that's quick to load if the content is so brief/thin that it wasn't worth clicking on the link!

Key really is to make sure the content is worth the time and answers the visitors questions/satisfies their goals. When creating pages, think about the user intent and make sure you're designing for the visitor. Remember visitors are investing their time/attention in your site - make sure they get a return!

If you can spend time testing your assumptions then that'll help you make changes based on real data rather than guesswork.

Hope this helps.