How to Improve Website Speed

Since digital marketing has evolved, every business, regardless of its size, owns a website. Websites are not only to showcase products and services; they also act as customer support. Features like browser chat, contact forms, FAQs, and query forms enhance the customer experience and provide 24/7 online support. Websites also help business owners analyze and study the dynamics of their audience and improve their marketing strategies based on the data. Websites are also the source of maintaining the online presence of the business 24 hours a day and ease of accessibility all around the globe. There are multiple important factors that can make your website more attractive for viewers; one of them is speed.

How fast should a website load

High-speed websites have a lower bounce rate, slow websites are annoying, and in this fast-paced world, nobody wants to stay on a website that takes minutes to Load each page. The speed of the website plays a significant role in user experience and satisfaction. Now a frequently asked question is: how fast should a website load? A study reveals that 40% of the audience will completely abandon the website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. It means the maximum waiting time for most people is 3 seconds; therefore, your site must take less than 3 seconds to load; otherwise, it may lose 40% of its traffic just because of the poor loading speed. However, good websites aim to load even faster; i2 seconds are considered the ideal loading time and provide a more optimal experience to the users.

 How important is page speed

Have you ever noticed how much time the Google Search Engine takes to load the searches? It provides you with results in milliseconds. The reason behind it is that Google is an optimized search engine. It is popular for its lightning-fast speed. To rank higher on different search engines, speed is an important factor to look into. SEO ranking increases your website’s visibility, so businesses should focus on creating optimized websites. Google search engines penalize slow-page-loading websites, particularly for mobile search results. They are negatively ranked on search engine result pages, impacting the visibility and performance of the website. Therefore, businesses need to focus on improving website speed and optimizing their website for better ranking in search engines.

Reasons for Slow Loading Websites

If you are unable to figure out the reasons for your slow website speed, you can check the below-mentioned list:

Server Performance and Location

Server performance can be a reason for the slow response time of a website. Every time a user clicks on something, the browser sends a request to the browser to provide the necessary information and data required to show the results. If the Server is responding with delay, obviously it will affect the speed of your website. Server location is also a factor that can affect the website’s performance. If the server is too far from the user’s device, it might cause a delay in loading your. Checking the performance and location of the server your website is using can optimize the website’s speed.

Massive Traffic

If your website has too many users at a particular instant, it might crash due to heavy traffic. The server can only handle a limited number of requests at one time. Once the server limit has been reached, it can affect the speed of the website.

Too Many Ads

Unoptimized code has larger and more dense files that affect the speed of your website. Large image files and too many javascript and CSS files take time to load. Load speed can be improved by using less dense files and writing optimized code.

Heavy Code Files

Unoptimized code has larger and more dense files that affect the speed of your website. Large image files and too many javascript and CSS files take time to load. Load speed can be improved by using less dense files and writing optimized code.

Key Elements of Website Speed Optimization 

In addition to the above-mentioned points, website speed can also be increased by using the following techniques:

SEO Practices:

SEO practices are one of the best ways to optimize the speed of your website. Search engine crawlers will be able to crawl fewer pages within their allocated crawl budget for a slow website, which will eventually impact the indexing of your website negatively.

Compressed Files

Use software applications like WinRAR, 7-Zip, WinZip, and Gzip to compress large code (HTML, CSS, and JS). To compress large image files (jpegs, png), you can use Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, TinyPNG, etc. Also, apply a size limit if you are asking a user to upload a document.

Reduce the redirect link

Use fewer redirection links on your website. Every time a user clicks on a link that redirects them to a new page, a new HTTP request will be generated, which will increase the waiting time for the user.

Remove Render Blocking JS

When a user clicks on a page, web browsers have to load various elements to display that page. Render-blocking Javascript is a code of Javascript that is written in a section or in HTML content that prevents the browser from loading half-loaded pages. Remove this render-blocking code from your code, as suggested by Google.

Use Cache for Preloading

A cache stores temporary copies of the most frequently accessed data from a server. Web browsers are designed to cache some of the information from the webpage to save loading time. There are also a lot of caching plugins available online for this purpose. Determine the optimal caching policies for your website to improve its speed.

Conclusion

The faster, the better. In this digital era where billions of businesses are run through digital platforms, website speed is a non-negotiable factor for business owners. Business owners should pay attention to how they can continuously improve their website speed. Different techniques can be used to optimize the content on the websites. One of the best techniques is using SEO practices. Improving website speed boosts search engine ranking, enhances the user experience, increases website efficiency and performance, increases user satisfaction, and results in better conversions. Optimizing server performance and content delivery networks can increase your website’s speed.

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