The digital world operates with a sense of urgency. Speed is everything when it comes to finding solutions online and users, with ample options, don’t mind going from one website to another even at the slightest provocation. And this provocation can come in form of undesirable website designs, uninformative content, or lethargic website speed. If a user visits a website and it takes longer than normal to load, he or she is most likely to move to another option, negatively impacting your business and brand image. This is why it is imperative to optimize your website speed and performance so that you enjoy a minimum bounce rate and high retention and engagement rate. However, it is impossible to improve these factors unless you know how this metric works and the factors that influence speed and performance. A speed and performance-optimized website not only provides a better user experience but also better search engine ranking, a deciding factor of how your business fares online. website development agency
- What is Website Speed?
Simply put, website speed is all about how quickly your content loads when a user visits your website. Website speed refers to the entire website and not a particular page, two terms that are often misunderstood. This loading speed depends on a variety of factors including:
- The number of images, videos and other media files on the website
- The kind of themes and plugins installed
- Website coding and server-side scripts
Nobody likes a slow-paced website that keeps them waiting. So, you must ensure that your website speed is optimized to the maximum. In fact, website speed and performance are important for various other reasons.
Why are Website Speed and Performance Important?
Studies have shown that the ideal time to load a website is around 3-5 seconds. If there is a mere increase of 3 more seconds to load a website, the bounce rate increase to 32 percent. And if it takes 5 seconds more, the bounce rate jumps to almost 90 percent. These are remarkable numbers and no business can afford a bounce rate that high. It is a matter of seconds and businesses must ensure that a website is quick loading and easily navigated. contact us about corporate website design
Even search engines like fast-loading and high-performing websites. Search engines like Google take a lot of factors into account when ranking them. And speed is one of them. Another reason why page speed is important is that it creates positive brand impressions. Any website that takes a long to load creates a negative impact on the way your customers perceive you. It makes you look unprofessional and gives out the impression that you haven’t paid enough attention to your website. Most users, when making a buying decision, are in a hurry to finalize things. And when they reach a website that doesn’t throw up information in a jiffy is a major turn-off.
Ways to Increase Page Loading Speed and Web Performance
Now that it is clear that page speed and performance hold high importance, let’s look at how you can enhance them. Talk to us about eCommerce website design
Choose the right hosting solution
Your hosting provider plays a significant role in determining your website’s performance and speed. Businesses often choose a mediocre hosting provider to save costs, but it can cost them a lot more in the long run. If resources are shared between multiple websites on an overloaded server, it will reduce your website’s loading speed. So, choose a hosting provider that delivers a dedicated server for your website, enhancing its speed and overall performance.
Use compressed and optimized images
Visual content sure makes a huge impact on the way your website looks. However, large and heavy images and videos can also impact the loading speed of the website. Therefore, compressing and optimizing images and videos is one of the best ways of enhancing the website’s loading speed. There are a variety of image optimization plugins available that automatically compress images and videos without impacting their quality. You can install these plugins to ensure that your websites load quickly without compromising on the visual aspect of it. Contact us about SEO and digital marketing
Minimize redirects
Having a lot of redirects on your website can also impact the overall loading speed of your website. Every time any page on your website redirects somewhere else, the HTTP request and response time get longer. Although it is necessary in certain cases like if you are migrating to another domain, keeping redirects to the bare minimum is advisable. You can ensure this by incorporating minimum redirects when building your internal links and menus. Alternatively, you can ensure that your Top Level Domain resolves within a maximum of one redirect. You can also use tools that identify unnecessary redirects. These can be deleted to enhance the website’s speed and performance.
Enable Page and Browser Caching
Caching is yet another effective way of increasing the speed and performance of your website. Caching web pages save copies of your site’s files, considerably reducing the work required for the server to generate a web page. Caching the browser helps it store information like images, stylesheets, JavaScript files, etc. reducing the need to reload the entire page every single time. You can utilize different plugins to do this on both the browser and web page levels to enhance the website speed.
Minimize JavaScript and CSS Files
Any website containing a lot of JavaScript and CSS files takes longer to load. This happens because it leads to a large number of HTTP requests every time a user tries to access a particular file. All these requests are treated individually by the user’s browser, slowing down the website’s performance and speed. To reduce the numbers, group all your JavaScript and CSS Files together. This will reduce the HTTP requests, and increase the speed.
Today’s users expect a website to load within 3 seconds. If the website doesn’t meet that expectation, they will move to another website. That’s a loss of business for you. Optimizing website speed and performance is highly desirable to ensure that your users remain with you and your business remains on track.
Conclusion
The website speed and performance will have a huge impact on your business. The website is your base for all kinds of online marketing. If you are a business person spending a huge amount of money on online marketing, then the first thing you need to improve will be website performance. Because through all the marketing channels we will be driving the traffic to your website. And if your website is not performing well, all the money will be gone. Coming to SEO, website performance will be the one that plays a crucial role in deciding your rankings. So in all ways, the website speed and performance is the one which matters most. If your website is not generating not enough leads, then it’s time to improve its performance. Get in touch with us to get a free site audit and guidance on how to improve your website performance.
