Slow website speed and page loading time can negatively affect the conversion rate on your website. If your website and its content is taking too long to load, visitors are likely to go elsewhere. A delay, even by just one second can cause a decrease in page views, conversions, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. How do you solve this problem? You have to increase your website speed.
Website speed is the rate at which a website takes to get from the hosting server to your browser, while webpage loading time refers to the time it takes for the webpage content to fully display on the screen. The website speed and page load time varies from one page on your website to another and depends on the user’s internet speed, browser, device used (desktop or mobile) and the weight of the page. Though you can’t control the user’s internet speed, device or browser of choice, you can make changes on your end to increase your website speed.
There are a few basic steps you can take to increase the speed of your website.
Images are a vital part of webpage presentation, but they are also some of the weightiest elements on a webpage, making up an average of 21% of the overall page weight. However, no one wants small, blurry images on their website. The solution is to optimize your photos. To optimize means to compress or decrease the size of the file.
You can optimize your photos before uploading them using a program such as Photoshop or an online image optimizer like Optimizilla or Kraken. It is best to save photos in one of three file types: PNG, JPG or GIF. PNG have better quality but, it has a larger file size. The alternative is to reduce the compression rate for a smaller file size (100 KB or less for high-resolution images) or just save the image as a JPG. Either way, choose the lowest compression that offers the best quality. If you have a WordPress site, you can use a plug-in like WP-Optimize to optimize the images already on your website instead of re-uploading a smaller file.
Photoshop – https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html
Optimizilla – https://imagecompressor.com/
Kraken.io – https://kraken.io/web-interface
WP-Optimize – https://getwpo.com/
Videos are a great way to promote business and products, provide information and share your story in an engaging way. Video files are quite large and will slow down your website speed if you attempt to self-host rather than use a hosting platform. Self-hosting is uploading the video file directly to your site instead of using a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo which uses a code to embed the video on your website. Video hosting platforms have the bandwidth and other resources needed to ensure smooth playback, it’s best to let them do their job and enjoy the benefits of it.
You may have heard the term “cache” used before in reference to your browser, but it is also relevant to your website. A cache is a temporary storage area where copies of files, log-in info and data are stored to aid in faster load time. This is beneficial with static content, which is content that never changes or doesn’t change often (logos, some images, downloadable files, HTML files, CSS stylesheets, ect.) When static content is cached, the browser does not have to go to the host server to make a request for the files. Think of it as having the ingredients to a recipe already in your cabinet instead of having to make a trip to the grocery store. Many web hosts offer the option to enable caching and there are plug-ins for WordPress as well (many of the optimization plug-ins also offer caching). You can select the static files that you wish to cache and the timeframe in which you want the cache to expire. Caching won’t ultimately make your site faster but it can cut back the page load time.
Not all hosts are created equal. When selecting a host, there are a few things you should consider , two in particular relate to your website speed. You want to select a host with a strong uptime rate of at least 99.9%. The uptime refers to the amount of time the host’s server is up and running. The second thing to consider is the type of server you will need. One of the most popular and affordable server types is the Shared Server. The Shared Server type is just as the name suggests, it is one in which your website will share resources and bandwidth with other websites. This option is fine for smaller or medium-sized sites, but will cause slower website speed for larger sites and those that experience high-traffic. For larger websites such as e-commerce sites, a dedicated server or VPN would be the better option.
Your website speed is an important aspect of your site that you do not want to overlook. There are a few other steps you can take to increase the speed of your website, but choosing the right host and server, caching static files, optimizing images and using a video hosting platform are some of the easier steps you can take to boost the speed and loading time of your webpages. For WordPress users, there are a quite a few plug-ins that offer multiple optimization options all within one plug-in. Increasing your website speed and page load time, even if by a few seconds will make a huge difference in your bounce rate, customer satisfaction and even search engine rankings.
Stephanie
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