Website Speed – Why Important?
Optimizing your business website speed is a must if you want to make the most of your website investment.
Apart from providing a better user experience, a quick load time helps you rank better with search engines. Google actually considers website page speed as a ranking factor for your website content. Most of all, it also increases revenue as user are more likely to complete a transaction and make a purchase. This keeps them coming back to buy from your website again.
How to check Your Website Speed
Before I show you how you can increase your website speed.
Here are 3 websites you can use to check your current website speed.
- Google Page Speed 2. GTmetrix 3. Pingdom
If your website load time above 3 seconds, them you need help 🙁
Looking at the importance of your website speed, below are some few things you can do optimize you website page speed.You can even effect some of these changes if you are not that much of a tech savvy.
Optimize images:
Large and uncompressed images can significantly slow down a website. To optimize images, you should compress them using tools like TinyPNG or FILEminimizer, and resize them to an appropriate size before uploading to your website. This can greatly reduce the file size and improve the loading speed of the website.
Use a content delivery network (CDN)
A CDN is a network of servers located around the world that store copies of your website’s static content, such as images, stylesheets, and scripts. When a user accesses your website, the content is served from the nearest server, reducing the loading time and improving the user experience.
Enable browser caching
Browser caching allows the browser to store certain parts of your website, such as images and stylesheets, on the user’s device. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be loaded each time the user visits your website, improving the loading time. You can enable browser caching by adding the appropriate cache headers to your website.
Minimize the use of plugins
Plugins can add useful functionality to your website, but they can also increase the number of HTTP requests and the amount of code that needs to be loaded. Minimizing the use of plugins can help reduce the loading time of your website.
Minify CSS, JavaScript and HTML
Minifying these files reduces the size of the code, making it faster for the browser to download and process. You can use tools like CSSNano, UglifyJS, and HTMLMinifier to minify your code.
Use a fast web host
The speed of your website can also be affected by the quality and performance of your web host. Consider switching to a more reliable and faster web host, such as SiteGround, Bluehost, or WP Engine, to improve the loading time of your website.
Use lazy loading for images
Lazy loading is a technique where images are only loaded when they become visible on the screen. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be loaded, improving the loading time of your website and providing a better user experience. You can use lazy loading plugins or add lazy loading to your website using JavaScript.
By implementing these and other optimizations, you can improve the speed of your website and enhance the user experience. However, it’s important to note that the specific optimizations you need will depend on the size, complexity, and traffic of your website, as well as your specific goals and requirements.
