Firstly, you have to accept the fact that one virtue that people have virtually lost, especially in relation to technology and the internet, is patience. If a user wants to browse through a site, but it is taking anything longer than 2 seconds to load, the chances are that he or she is going to exit.
If you have a business or a start-up that is reliant on a webpage and the aforementioned scenario happens with you, there is going to be a significant amount of loss of conversions. The speed of loading a web page is of immense importance if you are planning to advertise or sell yourself over the internet.
It has been further accentuated by the fact that people have almost completely resorted to using mobile phones to browse the web instead of a desktop and want everything at their fingertips. Their wish is what matters the most, and if you are not up to the task, there are others ready to devour you and take your place.
If surveys are anything to go by, each second extra taken by your web page to load is going to make you lose 11% of visitors. In a recent interview, Amazon revealed that if they could increase the loading speed of their website by 1 millisecond, their revenues could go up by 1%.
Therefore, you have to take every measure possible, do that little extra and make sure you don’t become a victim of slow loading and reap the benefits of faster service. Here is a list of things that you could do to assist the process.
- 10 top tools to speed test your website and identify problems
- How to speed up your website by optimising the images
1 Minimize the server response time
Your domain name system or DNS lookup is one of the most important aspects of how fast your webpage loads, so you have to make sure that it is up and functioning all the time. Having a fast DNS server is going to reduce the server response time drastically.
What a DNS server does is when you type a URL in your browser, it converts it into a more readable IP address. This is then matched with the database that the DNS has, and once a match is found, you are redirected to that particular match. If you feel it is not fast enough, maybe it is time to improve DNS performance.
2 Select better hosting options for your site
The hosting service that hosts your website is going to be as critical as the server. Generally, when you are starting a new business, you will generally go for the cheapest option. However, you should keep in mind that it is a temporary option and you should upgrade as soon as you have consolidated a budget.
Web hosting is generally of three types. The shared type means multiple sites will be sharing a common server and the resources will be shared as well.
Another option is that of VPS hosting. You have dedicated systems to your credit even though a single server is still hosting multiple sites. This is a good choice.
Nothing beats a dedicated server hosting, but it comes at a price which you should be able to meet. Give thorough consideration about the best choice you can make. You can even take suggestions from Web Hosting Review Box to understand which is the best available option for you.
3 Make use of the small size of images
Images are an important part of any webpage, especially if it is product oriented. More than 60% of users have said that they want to see at least 3 images of a product before they can start trusting it.
Whether it be an e-commerce site or a travel one, people will keep visiting and seeing the images to form an idea of what to expect. However, images are one of the main reasons why your web pages become slow. Eliminating images is completely out of the option so some technique of reducing their size should be adopted.
You could also put a thought into the file type for the images. Generally, a JPG file occupies the least space. Yes, they do compromise the image quality a little, but for the small size of the image being displayed, it won’t really matter.
Another option is .PNG. Use that only if required. Make sure you reduce the image size to the minimum possible.
4 Make use of a simple website design
Simplicity precedes complexity, especially when website designing is concerned. The simple design has so many advantages. It is easy to design, and your page will be up and running soon. Your viewer will find it easy to navigate and won’t be wary of any complexities. Most importantly, your web page will load much faster.
It is mainly because your website will send fewer HTTP requests. You could even introduce the option of caching your website, as sometimes users may be visiting your site multiple times. They won’t have to go through the entire process each time, and the loading will be faster.
5 Try to use a CDN
A Content Delivery Network, or a CDN, helps a user to access a server from a nearby geographical location for faster web page loading. If you host your web page only to a parent server somewhere in San Francisco, a user in Singapore will take more time to load the page.
Moreover, during the time of high traffic, the visibility of your website will be hampered more, something that you definitely wouldn’t want since high traffic means high chances of business. A CDN hosts your server to multiple geographical locations, so a user taps into the nearest located server database and extracts the data as and when required.
6 Don’t forget to use plugins
Plugins are extremely easy to install peripherals on your website that lets a user perform multiple functions while he or she visits it. This is instrumental in clearing off some of the mess and clutter, increase the workability, not tamper with codes and improve the experience of navigation as a whole.
There have been concerns about the security of a website on using plugins, but a full proof security system takes care of that as well.
7 Make minimum use of redirects
Yes, redirects are an easy substitute for broken links, but overall you should avoid redirection as much as possible. Firstly, it increases a state of dependence as the redirected website should also open as fast as possible. Secondly and most importantly, more redirection means more HTTP requests, as mentioned before.
8 Enable GZIP compression
Compression has always been an easy way to reduce space occupied, and you can do that for your web page as well using a GZIP software. It basically functions by identifying by a sequence of strings that have similar codes and replacing them temporarily.
This reduction in redundancy results in a massive reduction in the size of the online files and the web page loads much faster than the non-compressed version of it.
Once you have adopted these and some other website optimization strategies, you will notice an improvement in the opening and navigation speed of your website which will directly convert into increased traffic and consequently sales as well.
Author: Mike Khorev is an SEO consultant and digital marketing expert who helps SaaS, Software, IT and Tech companies generate more leads and sales and grow revenue online. He offers expert advice on marketing your company the right way through performance-based digital marketing, web design, social media, search engine marketing and many other online practices.
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