Amazing tips to Optimize your Website Speed
Category: Programming | Posted date: 2020-03-16 05:51:44 | Updated date: 2020-03-16 06:10:32 | Posted by: Admin
What is a Website Speed Optimization?
Page load time is a web performance metric that shows the time needed for a page to show on the user screen. It is a measurement of how fast the content on your page loads.
We live in a fast-paced world. People want things as quickly as possible — and they’re unhappy when something takes too long. Website speed optimization takes away one barrier between you and your audience.
High-performance websites results in high return visits, low bounce rates, higher conversions, engagement, higher ranks in organic search, and better user experience. Slow websites will cost you money and damage your reputation. By reducing the page load time you will positively impact marketing and sales processes. You’ll get higher traffic and attract more qualified leads that can be converted into customers. In this article, we will give you recommendations about how to improve your website performance and page load time.
The website speed makes the first impression about your business. It’s essential to understand that you won’t get a second chance when it comes to user experience. Low website speed is one of the most frustrating things that will turn people off about your resource.
Page speed is often confused with "site speed," which is actually the page speed for a sample of page views on a site.
How can low speed affect the Website?
Website performance is user experience – the power of page speed, translating into attractive online shopping experience inspires sales figures and eventually determines online business success. The industry kingpin Google began factoring page speed into its proprietary search algorithms ever since it experienced the compelling repercussions of website performance lapses impacting sales. The search engine giant once experienced a 20 percent slump in traffic resulting from half a second delay in page load times.
How low speed can affect the Usability of a Website?
The relationship elements between website usability and customer loyalty are tied down to website KPIs, including page speed, load time and website responsiveness to user requests. A hypothetical model of website speed optimization puts these elements into consideration, with characteristics such as Site Trust, Interactivity and Information relevance considered as a subset of website usability by end-users.
Websites with the steepest learning curve achieve the highest customer lock-in. Internet users consider the time taken in learning to use alternate websites as a significant switching cost, which acts as a mechanism to lock them into online services offered via high-performance websites.
Similarly, web crawlers and search engines measure website performance in terms of page speed, navigability, user experience, responsiveness and reachability to a global audience as a subset of search engine optimization impacting search rankings.
Key Factors for Website Success
Conversion. Website conversion is an important factor in your business success, which means getting your visitors to do what you want them to do. For instance, they will buy your product, subscribe to newsletters campaigns, register for a webinar, or download a guide. The faster the page loads, the higher conversion rates it’ll have. According to the Hubspot research, 1 second delay means 7 percent reduction in conversions. For instance, a page slowdown of 1 second could cost Amazon $1.6 billion in sales each year.
Visibility. The load time of your website also influences how easily users can find your website. Website speed is one of the factors that Google takes into consideration when ranking sites. A low performing website has a poor user experience and as a result gains less promotion in search results.
Usability. Website usability like website page speed, load time, and website responsiveness to user requests directly impacts customer loyalty. The better your website performs, the more satisfied a user will be. A great user experience is a way for building a large customer base and a strong brand.
Performance Evaluation Tools using for Website Optimization
- Google Pagespeed Insights is a free tool from Google that runs a performance test on your site and provides recommendations on how to increase performance. It works for both desktop and mobile versions.
- Pingdom is also a great tool for website speed testing with a number of useful features. It tracks your website’s performance history, makes data-driven recommendations on how to improve the website speed, and generates easy to understand reports. Pingdom also provides the apps for website speed testing for Android and iOS. It has both free and professional paid monitoring plans.
- YSlow also provides recommendations on how to improve the performance of the page, draws statistics, and summarizes all components.
- Performance Budget Calculator is a free tool that helps figure out what type of content you can use to keep your site running optimally.
Tips for having the best Website Speed Optimization
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Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network is a set of web servers distributed across various geographical locations that provide web content to end users with regard to their location.
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Move your website to a better host
There are three types of hosting:
- Shared hosting
- Virtual Private Servers (VPS) hosting
- Dedicated server
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Optimize the size of images on your websit
Everyone loves eye-catching images. In the case of successful eCommerce sites, images are the vital part. A lot of photos, images, graphics on your product pages improve engagement.
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Reduce the number of plugins
Plugins are common components of each website. They add specific features suggested by third parties. Unfortunately, the more plugins are installed, the more resources are needed to run them.
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Minimize the number of JavaScript and CSS files
If your website contains a lot of JavaScript and CSS files, it leads to a large number of HTTP requests when your website visitors want to access particular files.
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Use website caching
Caching is the process of storing the current version of your website on the hosting and presenting this version until your website is updated. This means that the web page doesn’t render over and over again for each user.
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Implement Gzip Compression
Gzip Compression is an effective way to reduce the size of files. It minimizes the HTTP requests and reduces the server response time. Gzip compresses the files before sending them to the browser.
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Database optimization in CMS
Database optimization is an effective way to increase performance. If you use a content management system (CMS) packed with complex plugins, the database size increases and your website works slower.
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Reduce the use of web fonts
Web fonts have become very popular in website design. Unfortunately, the use of web fonts has a negative impact on the speed of page rendering. Web fonts add extra HTTP requests to external resources.
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Detect 404 errors
A 404 error means that a “Page isn’t found”. This message is provided by the hosting to browsers or search engines when the accessed content of a page no longer exists. In order to detect and correct a 404 error, you can use error detection tools and plugins.
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Reduce redirects
Website redirects create additional HTTP requests which negatively impact performance. We advise to keep them to a minimum or eliminate them entirely.
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Use prefetching techniques
Prefetching entails reading and executing instructions before a user initiates them. The technique is rather common. It works well if you can anticipate user actions and, for instance, load some content or links in advance.
