how do you make the site faster?

My site

http://www.follettmotors.com/eng/mainindex.php

seems to run very slow especially when loading the graphics!

before you say ... der you idiot the graphics are slowing it down.... answer this.. How do the bigger companies make graphics load way faster. I use photoshop and have taken layers of the pictures but it still seems slow.

Can you please have a look at my site and log the time it takes to load fully


also if you get the chance can you have a look at:

http://www.follettmotors.com/ed/index.php

and tell me what you think about the colours etc!

cheers
ed

2 things i noticed, your stylesheet (css) is on your page, you should put this in a seperate page for the css only, the other thing, your graphics are jpg, you should either change your graphics to gif or png (this reduces the size of the graphics speeding your site up) or reduce the quality of your jpgsa little bit that also makes the file size smaller

It loaded fast for me, but I'm sitting on a large corporate pipe, so....



Couple things you can do:
1. reduce the graphics file size. I checked the size of the Audi engine and the old Type 1 graphics and they were both waaaaay to fat. 10-15k max is what I'd find acceptable. Normally I'd disagree with the .gif advice that Tony gave but the Audi graphic looks monochromatic and the Type 1 looks B/W so you might have some success there.
2. Ditch graphics you don't need. Using graphics to display text is not only making your download slower, but you're keeping info from the search engines. If you must use graphics for text, at least use the "alt" attribute so you don't hose yourself with the search engines.

I'd also get rid of the JS "time in seconds" thing.... that's got to be bewildering your visitors.

Sure..
As for me - quite nice but realy UnReadable. especially those "light-green" headlines.
Some Padding within boxes on the right might also help.
I do like the logo, but (for me) it's a little bit too small.. Is there a text under green dots/squares of logo?

Regards,
Lichurec