Focus on minimizing website size
Because of the slower speeds and smaller screens associated with mobile devices, every bit of data you attempt to serve deserves consideration. That's why it's vitally important that you reduce the amount of content on your mobile-optimized site, removing extraneous information, animation and all other eye candy. Tables, so handy for coding standard websites, require too many bits to be beneficial for mobile websites.
With bit rates for 3G handhelds hovering under 15 Mbit/sec, there's a strictly limited amount of data that can be transmitted if your website is to load in 10 seconds or less. Think "dial-up" rather than broadband.
Fortunately, most handheld browsers show the incoming material bit by bit as it arrives, and mobile browsers that use proxy servers tend to load whatever data the screen is trying to display at the moment. Still, users won't sit still for long delays at home, and they feel even less inclined to do so when they're on the go. So cutting website sizes to the bone is central to optimizing for handhelds.
