I’m sure most people stopped while waiting for a website to load. Waiting is tedious; we all expect websites to load quickly – nothing else is worth the wait in today’s time-constraint world. If your website is like this, then you probably haven’t thought about an upgrade in a while, or not at all.
Because of this, website speed is an essential part of your website’s performance. Whether your goal is to reduce customer service calls, get more targeted leads, or be the center of your digital strategy, website optimization can make your website more effective in achieving these goals.
Most consumers say that loading time is an important factor when looking for information online. According to Google, 53% of cell phone calls are abandoned if the page takes longer than three seconds to load. In addition, the study found that fast websites generate more revenue. Mobile websites that load up to five seconds or less generate twice as much advertising revenue as websites that load 19 seconds.
In addition, Google asked users if they would prefer to provide 30 or 10 search results per page. When Google put 30 results in a few search pages, the traffic dropped by 20% and the page load time between the two result pages was only half a second. If half a second has such an impact on traffic, imagine the difference it would make if you reduced your website load time by three seconds.
Key aspects of website performance optimization
Hosting
There are several important web hosting factors to consider when deciding whether to stay with your existing provider or move to a new provider. It goes without saying that you need to make sure that the hosting service has dedicated 24/7 customer service. Also, check out the reviews of their service on third-party review sites. Make sure that complaints do not have common themes as this suggests that you are likely having a similar problem.
When you surf, you try to access remote files that are on web servers, and the faster the computer, the faster you can access the requested pages. Same goes for web hosting: Effective web hosts invest in web server architecture to ensure that every page on these web servers runs at full speed. Also, look for more advanced hosting plans that come with expanded storage and increased performance. Improved resources increase the speed of your websites because requests are processed faster. Moving from shared web hosting to better plans will do the job too.
Studies have shown that 47% of consumers expect a webpage to load in two seconds or less, with 40% leaving a website that takes more than three seconds to load. There are plenty of valuable guides and tips out there to speed up your website, whether you need to speed up a WordPress website or one of the other content management systems like Umbraco, Drupal, etc. Speed really is king, so do what you can to improve yours.
Size of the pictures
Files and images are important tools for your website as they help increase conversions, stir your audience’s emotions, and tell stories about your website. It would be difficult to develop an effective website without using visual content. The main purpose of using images on your website should be to improve the user experience and improve your content marketing as well. If the images are negatively affecting your website’s performance, you need to fix this ASAP as Google will also penalize your website by ranking it lower.
Also think of “side bloating”. As new technologies and new methods for content marketing and lead generation emerge, try to avoid cramming too much on one page. Images, scripts, Flash, HTML, stylesheets, forms, videos, etc. – all of these could be on one page. Try to avoid this. Simple, clean and easy to understand is the best approach.
Images can often be quite a problem for loading speed. When images are not properly optimized, they usually consume valuable page loading time and add to the poor experience for your website visitors. Optimizing images can increase the speed and performance of your website. The larger the file size of the image and the less optimized they are, the slower a website will load and the worse the performance will be. As simple as that.
When choosing a file type, consider the purpose of your image and its content. Choose the format that gives the smallest size while maintaining the same quality. Also, make sure you choose the correct dimensions. Identify where the images will be used on your website and make sure they are no larger than needed for that area. Not only can your hosting provider advise you on how to best optimize it.
Apps / plugins
Plugins offer different functions and functions. Some plugins load assets in the front end such as images, JavaScript files and CSS stylesheets, while others are used for database calls in the back end. Most plugins require HTTP requests to load assets, and each request will affect your website’s page load time.
When website plugins are properly installed and set up, their impact on website speed is minimal. However, a conflict between plugins can affect the speed of your website just as badly as if they are not updated. Also, if you use too many plugins that make lots of requests to load assets and files, or if your plugins are not up to date, it will affect your website’s user experience and performance.
Mobile-first
Mobile-first can be described as a way to design a mobile version of your website before the desktop version. Responsive design is fine, but mobile-first is ideal.
Mobile-first has three main advantages:
- It improves the user experience for your website
- Provides incredible performance for backward compatibility
- Google loves mobile-first websites and prefers them on search engine results pages.
This means that before you even start coding and designing your website, you should focus on great mobile design for a better, easier, and faster web experience across all screens and devices. Aside from the fact that most of us now surf and search on mobile rather than desktops, Google’s mobile-first indexing is changing the game – that is, Google is crawling and indexing the mobile version of a website instead of the desktop version.
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
CDN is a geographic server that hosts copies of your website’s resources to serve content based on the user’s location. CDN shortens the RTT (Round Trip Time) of your content and brings it closer to the geographic location of your site visitor.
When online users request certain content from your website, the content delivery networks look for the most optimal side note that can meet the request. This means that automatically selecting the servers closest to the requesting user is the least expensive and has the highest capacity.
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The Aberdeen Group conducted a study that found that a one-second delay in page load time resulted in 11% fewer page views, 7% fewer conversions, and 16% less customer satisfaction. The results suggest that page load times have a direct impact on sales, search engine optimization, and the overall customer experience.
The fact that a lot of customers say they will never return to a slow website means that you should keep them happy by using the right website performance tools and taking the above into account. You will be amazed at the difference it makes to not only all your website traffic but all major website metrics as well.
