What are the benefits of a fast site, faster page loading speed and does page speed matter?
The internet has become a fundamental part of our lives. It has changed how we communicate, how we consume information and entertainment and even how we shop. The internet is an integral part of our daily lives, which is why it is important that it functions as smoothly as possible. In this article, I will discuss the benefits of faster page loading times and how they can make your online experience more enjoyable and less frustrating.
To start with, a faster internet means that you can get to sites quicker without having to wait for them to load in the background. This means that you can use your time more efficiently by doing other things while waiting for pages to load up instead of browsing through Facebook or Instagram.
In addition to this, faster page loading times also mean that you are less likely to run into errors such as 404 messages or broken links because the site was not able to load properly due to slow page speeds. This ensures that your online experience is free from frustration and annoyance so you can focus on the task at hand.
The impact of slow websites on users
Speed is an important factor for both desktop and mobile websites. The ideal for the desktop is as soon as possible and the load time for a page to be displayed on your phone should be 1-2 seconds. This means that if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, it will lose 52%-62% of its visitors.
What are the causes of poor speed?
The causes of poor speed are usually because of the following:
- Slow server response time
- The website’s database is too large or inefficient
- Unnecessary plugins and other scripts running on the website at the same time
- The hosting service is not able to support the website’s traffic load
- The web server has a problem with memory or CPU
How website speed optimization influences conversions, and what is conversions?
Website speed optimization is no longer just a nice-to-have. It has become a necessity. The website loading time is one of the most important factors in conversion rates of websites. It’s not just about the page loading time, but also the browser rendering, DOM loading and other factors that influence user experience on your website.
A conversion is a process where the website visitor takes an action that completes the goal of the site. These actions could be downloading a document, filling out a form, buying something or subscribing to an email list. A conversion is any time somebody completes one of these tasks and successfully accomplishes the goal of the site.
How your website speed influences visibility
Website speed influences visibility in many ways. First of all, it influences how much time your visitors spend on your site. If you have a slow loading site, then they will get frustrated and leave sooner than if you had a faster loading website. Secondly, it influences how often your visitors return to your site. If they find that your pages take too long to load, then they might stop visiting altogether because it's just not worth their time. Finally, it also influences how well you rank on Google search results pages (SERPs). A fast loading website will be ranked higher than a slow loading one because Google wants to provide users with content that is quick and easy to access.
The Top 10 ways to improve website load time
Website load time is one of the most important factors in determining a website’s success. A page speed improvement can be achieved by following these best practices:
1. Optimize large images:
Image files can take up a lot of bandwidth, so optimizing them will help improve page speed. You can use this tool Squoosh
2. Compress and minify the css files and JavaScript files using (gzip compression):
Reducing the payload and the number of HTTP requests for these files will also help improve page speed.
3. Use a CDN (content distribution network or content delivery network):
A CDN will reduce latency by distributing content across servers around the world and caching it closer to users, which means users will get content from their nearest server, thus improving load time and performance for everyone.
4. Enable browser caching:
One of the easiest ways is to enable browser caching. This allows the website's content to load faster because the browser can show it from its cache (a local copy) instead of having to download it from the server again.
5. Limit plugins and extra page elements:
Many plugins and page elements on a website that can impact the performance. Extra features can be scaled back or removed from the site in order to speed up the loading time, you could also do a caching plugin.
6. Avoid unnecessary URL redirects:
URL redirects are links that will redirect the user to a different URLs or webpages. Try to avoid using many of those, as this can impact your search engine's rank.
7. Remove unnecessary and unused code:
Cluttering your code with unnecessary blocks of code can also increase the time it takes for the page to load.
8. Reduce JavaScript payloads with code splitting:
Code splitting is a technique that separates larger, more complex JavaScript files into smaller bundles. It's a good idea to load scripts on the page as they're needed, rather than loading them all at once. This minimizes the size and number of requests that need to be made on a page, which can improve performance and how your site ranks in search engines.
9. Defer non-critical CSS
One of the best ways to reduce a website's loading time is to defer loading the website's stylesheet until after page rendering has completed. Websites that depend on a quick response from users should consider this method as it will increase their speed by preventing the browser from having to wait for an external stylesheet before it can start rendering content.
10. Reduce server response times (TTFB - Time to First Byte)
TTFB is the time that it takes for a page to start displaying content. This can be on the order of hundreds of milliseconds, and this includes such things as DNS lookup, TCP handshake, SSL negotiation and server configuration.
The slowness of the TTFB can be caused by network latency, dynamic content and DNS response time.
Conclusion and the good practice:
A fast loading time is an important aspect of user experience. Google has made it even more crucial as one of their new uses in their ranking algorithm so that if you want to get higher rankings and more visitors, your site needs to load quickly.
To improve the speed of your website, you might want to look for common issues that cause pages to load slowly. For example, you might want to watch out for images that are too big or plugins that can lead to a poor performance or slow load times
Your site’s loading time depends heavily on what sort of resources it has to load. Pick a tip from the above and you will see which thing you can check or change to improve your site’s load times. Focus on those high-impact factors and take the necessary steps to get them into shape.
Check out these tools to help you audit your website performance:
Top comments (1)
Great feedback Robin, and many thanks for the tips