Having a website with informative content, a compelling call to action and one that is SEO optimised is great. However, this won’t count if your web visitors can’t access your site quickly. Research indicates that a one-second delay in page load time translates into 11% fewer page views and 7% loss in conversions.
Having a fast site not only ensures that you’re profitable, but it also helps your website rank well on Google.How to improve your website speed?
The topic of “site speed” is a lengthy one, but here are four quick ways you can improve your website speed:
1. Use a Content Delivery Network
Placing your media files on a content delivery network can reduce the number of requests your website makes, and save you up to 60% bandwidth. With a CDN, your files are hosted across different servers around the world.
For example, if someone visits your site from Australia, they will download files from the closest server. That means your site doesn’t experience traffic spikes, and you won’t have the load on a single server.
2. Minimize HTTP requests
Yahoo estimates that 80% of a web page’s load time is spent downloading the various parts of a page like the scripts, images, and stylesheets. Each of these elements has an HTTP request. That means that if your site has several components, it will take longer for it to load.
It’s essential to figure out the number of HTTP requests your site makes. Focus on reducing the number of requests to speed up your website.
3. Optimise the size of images
Loading images is taxing, something that could interfere with your site’s speed and performance. While this could be due to resolution, it could also be due to image compression. Having large photo files could slow down your site.
You can reduce the image size without affecting its quality by using tools like Kraken and ImageOptim. Alternatively, you can use HTML responsive images to reduce the image size.
4. Minimise the number of plugins
It’s normal to have multiple plugins that add specific features. However, having several plugins means you’ll need more resources to run them. That’s something that slows the website speed and could lead to other security issues.
You need to check all the plugins you have and delete those that you don’t need. Note, that website speed also depends on the quality of the plugins. Run a performance test on your site to know which plugins could be generating many database queries or those that load multiple scripts. Only have the necessary plugins and update them regularly.
Website speed affects your ranking on Google and your website traffic. You need to test your current site speed and evaluate critical factors like usability, conversion, and visibility.
Use the above tips to help enhance your site speed and performance. Or contact us to help you make these changes.