Optimize the Use of Pictures with Your Free Web Hosting Home Page

Contributed by Carpesomediem

What do pictures have to do with free web hosting?

Pictures, and their different formats, take up valuable space on your free web hosting service. When it comes down to it, a standard JPG formatted picture can take up the entirety of your storage space with the service, which isn't good for your entire site. Since pictures do take up a majority of web site storage space, it's logical to try and turn this to the designer's advantage.

How can I optimize pictures with my free web hosting service?

Optimizing pictures for maximum potential on free web hosting servers should be a primary concern of a designer when working with a tiny amount of space for their home page. The first thing that can be done to help with storage is to utilize more compressed file formats for pictures; using such formats as GIFs should be your primary goal with all pictures you upload to a free service. GIFs are one of the most easily compressed file formats for graphics, artwork and pictures on the internet.

Many forums and other sites that might allow you to upload avatars for display require the GIF format for its simplicity and small storage size. BMP, quite the contrary, is one of the largest formats a picture can be saved as and should be avoided at all cost when using limited storage space.

Another way to showcase pictures on your web site to your liking would be to design your pages not to rely solely on the pictures as the driving force to attracting an audience. This means designing dynamic pages whose content far outweighs the visual stimulation a picture can provide; after all, visitors are coming to view your content for the most part.

More »