For most internet users, there’s nothing more frustrating than a slow website. You click on a link and patiently wait for it to load. You may even hit refresh a few times to help it along. After a while, you get tired of waiting, close the window, and return to your browser’s search results.
This is every marketer’s worst fear because website speed gives users their first impression of your business. So it’s crucial to get it right the first time.
What Is Website Speed About?
Website speed is the measurement of how fast your website loads when someone clicks on your URL. It’s also an essential part of the user experience because faster sites mean happy visitors. Happy visitors become satisfied customers and are more likely to revisit your website.
Why Is Website Speed Important?
Slow website speed is frustrating and will discourage users from revisiting your site. While websites that perform well see a higher rate of return visitors, higher engagement, higher rankings in organic search, and better user experience.
A slow website is also bad for business. When someone clicks on a website link, they expect it to load. If your site is too slow, you’ll not only be losing visitors, but also potential customers.
Websites with a slow loading time are also penalised by Google. This has a terrible effect on your website traffic and causes your search engine ranking to drop.
Optimizing Your Website Speed
When you examine the factors that cause a website to be slow, you will notice that it’s not all that difficult to fix. It’s all about creating a clean website that’s not filled with messy code, flashy graphics, and large images.
There are many different ways to optimise your website speed. A digital marketing course is a great way to brush up your skills on the subject. You can also try some Digital Marekting agency such as the Dagmar digital marketing agency. But for now, let’s take a brief look at some of the most effective methods.
- Content Delivery Network
All websites have a global reach, which means people will be visiting your website from all around the world. But the location/origin of your website and the proximity to users could affect the site’s speed. To optimise speed for users from different places, you can set up your website on a content delivery network. This system houses your website in more than one location. So when a user clicks on your site, it will be loaded from a location closest to them.
- Choose A Good Hosting Provider
When deciding which company should host your website, you need to examine the services they offer. Available bandwidth, guaranteed up-time (which means a guarantee that servers won’t always be down) are essential factors to consider. Your website isn’t going to load in good time if your bandwidth is limited or if the serves are always down. So finding a reliable provider is crucial.
- Optimise Images
Everyone loves images. They’re also a valuable marketing tool because they drive audience engagement. But the downside is that too many graphics and images can slow down your website. Fortunately, the solution is simple. Avoid the urge to use too many pictures on each page of your website and resize the images you plan to use.
- Reduce Plug-ins And Add-ons
Plug-ins and add-ons are common elements of any website. Most of them add value, but some of them don’t. Having too many of these little extras on your website will slow it down. Take a look at the number of plug-ins and add-ons you have installed, see which ones are the most necessary, and delete the rest. It’s also a good idea to test your website to see if any of them are affecting your load time. A good quality plug-in should not be slowing down your site. If it is, you need to look for a better alternative.
- Avoid Using Too Much Code
If your website has a lot of messy code, it will take longer to load. This is because websites with a lot of CSS files and JavaScript lead to a larger amount of HTTP requests when people access different pages on your site. These are treated as individual requests by a user’s browser and increases load times. So removing unnecessary CSS files and JavaScript will speed things up.
- Limit Font Use
Using different fonts is an easy way to make your website look cool. Unfortunately, fonts add extra HTTP requests to external resources, which negatively impact your speed. While it’s tempting to mix things up, try sticking to one or two standard fonts.