Are you tired of waiting for your website to load? Then there’s a high chance that your website visitors are too! In this blog, we’re letting you know how to improve website speed.
What is website speed?
Website speed refers to how long it takes for your website to load once clicked. For the website to have loaded, users must be able to interact with it fully. You might also hear the phrase ‘time to first byte’ (TTFB), which means the time it takes for the server to send the first byte of data to the browser. A good server response time would be under 200 milliseconds.
All websites are hosted on a server. This enables them to be found online and also helps to keep them secure. A website with poor hosting may experience issues with page load times.
What impacts my website’s performance?
Many factors can impact your website’s speed. If you are concerned about your site’s speed, consider these factors first and explore ways to improve them.
- Too much non-optimised content on web pages (uncompressed images, large videos, etc.)
- Poor hosting provider
- Poor code optimisation (CSS and JavaScript files)
- Lack of browser caching
What are the risks of having a slow website?
There are so many issues with having a slow website, and they go much further than just being an inconvenience to your potential customers. Here are some of the most significant risks.
Loss of website traffic
If your website is too slow, you will likely experience high bounce rates. This means that people will try to access your site and quickly leave as it’s not working as they expect it to. Higher bounce rates also mean a loss of sales and revenue, as these people will likely move on to a competitor’s website.
SEO damage
Search engine optimisation requires a combination of techniques to be successful. One of the most important SEO ranking factors is site speed. Therefore, with a poor website speed, you’re unlikely to be listed at the top of the search engines organically.
Poor user experience
When visitors arrive on your website, you need to provide them with a good experience. This means everything loads quickly, it’s easy for them to find the information they need, and they can connect with your brand. A slow-loading website will not provide a good user experience, which again will lead to customers leaving your site and finding another one.
Google uses Core Web Vitals to assess site experience, which evaluates elements such as visual stability.
Marketing campaign issues
A slow-loading website can also have an impact on other marketing campaigns you have running through the search engines. This can often lead to a poor return on investment for you.
All of these issues and risks can cause reputational damage to your brand. It’s vital that you address your site’s speed issues to improve the experience on your website.
How can I improve my website’s speed?
There are so many ways that you can attempt to improve your website speed. Here are some of the most common fixes.
Optimise your image file sizes
Websites often have many images, which is fine, but they need to be optimised correctly. This means taking steps such as reducing their size. However, you need to be careful to ensure that you don’t spoil the image quality.
Some website owners also decide to use lazy loading, which means that images and content only appear as the user scrolls down the page and reaches them. This can reduce the website’s initial load time.
Optimisation also links to your website being responsive. A responsive website will adjust itself based on the screen size it is being displayed upon, for example, desktop or mobile devices.
Website caching
Browser cache means that a copy of a website file is stored on the user’s device to speed up repeat visits. If you enable browser caching, it can also help to take the pressure off the server, as it doesn’t need to generate a new version of the website from scratch.
Ensure correct code optimisation on your WordPress site
A web designer can help you ensure that your website code works efficiently. By optimising the website code, you can reduce file sizes and ensure a good loading time.
Keep your website updated to improve site performance
It’s vital that you update your website regularly. This can help you reduce speed issues and improve security. When you update your site, you may have core updates, plugin updates, and theme updates. Having too many plugins can also contribute to poor performance. Ensure that you follow all guidance before you attempt to complete any updates yourself.
We offer a valuable hosting service which covers all website updates and maintenance.
How can I measure my page speed?
Whether you know what your site speed is or not, it’s a good idea to test it every so often. This gives you an idea of whether you need to make improvements or not. Here are some of the most commonly used tools for website speed.
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- GTMetrix
You can also use tools such as Google Analytics to identify which pages are performing best on your website. Ideally, you want high session times and low bounce rates. These are some good signs of a well-performing website.
Google and other search engines use metrics such as these to determine how relevant and useful your website’s content is. A valuable website is more likely to perform well on the search engines. However, just because your website is valuable, it does not guarantee that it will rank at the top of the search engine results page.
There are many factors that search engines use, such as domain authority, content quality, mobile friendliness, user experience and speed!
Are you tired of having a slow website? Then you should contact our team. Our expert web developers will work with you to identify why your website is slow and make valuable improvements to help speed it up. Contact us today to see how we can help.