One thing which people hate most when searching the internet is slow loading websites. When users search on Google, they expect the website to load fast. If not, people are likely to return to the main results page and look for an alternative website.
This may not be a problem for the person who’s viewing the page but it’s a nightmare for the owner of the website. For the website owner, it means losing a potential customer.
Google also dislikes slow-loading websites as it leads to a poor user experience. Users may end up using alternative search engines which consequently means less revenue from Google ads.
To stop this from happening, Google introduced a number of measures to ensure that fast-loading websites are on top of its search results pages while slower loading pages are listed towards the bottom. Website speed has been one of the biggest factors that affect site rankings. If you want your website to appear on page 1 of Google, you need to improve its loading speed.
Page Speed and SEO
Page speed essentially refers to how fast the content on your page loads. There are a number of factors that can affect your page’s loading speed including page file size, image compression, and the website’s server.
Page speed is one of the factors used by Google’s algorithm to rank pages. If your page loads slowly then Google can only crawl a few pages within a specified time, which could have a negative effect on your website’s indexation.
This means it leads to poor user experience and low conversions. Your website must load within 3 seconds to ensure a good user experience and be listed higher within the search results.
How can you test the speed of your website?
There are a number of different ways to check the load speed of your page. The top three are fully loaded page, time to the first byte, and the first meaningful point. Sites like gtmetrix.com allow you to create a free account to test the speed of your website. You can also use Google’s PageSped Insights to evaluate your page speed.
How can you improve the speed of your website?
1) Use the correct hosting solution
New website owners tend to choose the cheapest hosting options. This is not a problem however if you’re just starting and once your website gets more traffic, you need to look at upgrading your hosting solution.
Hosting providers include:
SiteGround
Cloudways
2) Reduced Image Sizes
Images usually account for at least 50% of your page’s site, it’s important to make sure that the image in your website have the right size and file format. Having large images on your site means your servers will work harder to lad the media files. Use optimized images to make your website easier to crawl and index.
This is why reducing the size of your image is essential. Smaller image sizes use less of your website’s disk space and bandwidth. It will make your pages lighter. Your server will communicate with your visitor’s browsers faster, and your content will load even faster. You’ll find the various image compression plugins on the internet today.
Three options to consider
EWWW Image Optimizer
Smush
Optimole
3) Reduce HTTP Requests
Most of the web pages load time is spent downloading different components of the page including scripts, images, and stylesheets.
Your browser will send an HTTP request to a web server. One HTTP request is made for every component. So, if your page has a lot of components, it will take longer to render the page because it has more on-page components.
If you’re looking for a plugin to help you minimize your page’s HTTP request, you should check out Autotomise.
4) Use a cache plugin
Caching involves storing several copies of files or data in a cache or temporary storage location so that they could be accessed faster. It’s where data for web browsers, servers, and software applications are saved temporarily so that users don’t have to download the data each time to access an application or website.
The data includes scripts, files and images that are stored on a device automatically when a user visits a website or opens an application for the first time. Caching your site can help it load two to four times faster.
Having a fast-loading website is essential. It may be challenging to set up but it will have a significant impact on your website’s performance. If you want to learn more or require help making your website fast, please contact us today.
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