We've heard it over and over again - adding graphics to a
website is a GOOD thing. They can generally make your site
more appealing, illustrate points or products, and provide
creative icons for people to click through for more
information.

So you are developing a website, and you really want
to add cool graphics. But how?

Well, you can run out and buy a bunch of expensive graphics
programs and 'dummies' books to learn how to use them.

Or you can sign up for courses, on or off-line, for various
amounts of money. But you'll probably be old and gray by the
time you sort through all the mumbo-jumbo you'll need to
sort through, or you'll be stressed to the max, and the
opportunity your website originally presented will be
long- gone.

Adding graphic images to your site should be easy and fun.

It is possible to:

- find graphics you can use at little or no cost; or
- jazz up your own pictures or graphics

Throw the mumbo-jumbo commands, books, and classrooms out
the window. If you just want to find graphics or photos you
can use, start by doing a search on your favorite search
engine(s) for 'royalty-free graphics.' You'll probably be
kept busy for quite awhile chasing down the links you'll
find. Many of the sites that provide these graphics also
include instructions or coding to add them directly to your
site - so you don't have to be a rocket scientist to jazz
up your web pages, after all!

Here's a few things to remember when creating web graphics:

1. Don't Sacrifice Speed For The Price Of Quality

Your main webpage should be under 40 KB in size for graphic
intensive pages. Since a graphic file usually downloads
slower than a normal text file (i.e. html page), you have to
ensure that your graphics are small, fast at loading
and visually appealing at the same time.

2. Graphics Should Be Appropriate, Not Just Look Good

One mistake a lot of web developers and Internet marketers
make is putting "cute" online graphics or photos on a
website just because they look good. This is a great
technique if the images are relevant, irrelevant image
placement just creates slower loading pages.

3. Don't Use Graphics When You Can Use Text

One logo, no matter how small, could take up to 5 seconds
to load on a website. While this may not seem like a great
length of time, it could mean the difference between
losing an impatient customer or getting the sale.

If your logos or graphics are based on simple fonts, then
why use a graphic when one line of HTML code can produce
the same text effect? And it'll take 1/100th of the time
to load that one line of HTML as opposed to the graphic.

You can also learn - quickly and easily - how to 'jazz up'
your own photos or images to add them to your site. For
example, if you just need to prepare your GIF or JPG images
for the web by compressing them so that they will load
faster, check out the free, ready-to-use "image cruncher"
utilities at http://computer-newbies.com/beveldevil/.

This software is really simple to use. It requires no
knowledge of computers and it has a fast learning curve.

This is just one example of the information that's
available on the web. With all the free and inexpensive
online resources available to budding web designers, there's
no excuse not to have a site that's jazzed up just the way
you want it to be - without having to get a university
degree or spend six months profit to do it.

About the Author
Rick Hunter has more tools for new graphic designers
at his website, http://computer-newbies.com/ezgraphics/