Have you ever waited for a store to open when there is another store offering the same product? We guess most of you will lose your patience and will immediately move to another store. We all hate losing time, especially when we have a lot of options around. It is a similar scenario with online, too. People hate visiting a website that takes time to load. You would be surprised to know that in most cases, poor loading time is one of the major contributing factors to a page abandonment.
The loading speed of your website not only affects user-experience but also traffic and eventually conversion rate.
You must remember that over the years, Google has started behaving as a human not just as algorithms. For Google, website speed is a big ranking factor in the modern time. Google is more focused on improving the experience of mobile users as well. Therefore, as a website owner, you must optimize your website for mobile users too.
To find out how much time your website takes to load, you can use PageSpeed Insights tool launched from Google itself.
If slow loading speed is affecting your conversion and sales, then you must stick to this post until the end. In this tutorial, we will be discussing some proven ways to optimize a website for speed so that you can enhance your conversation rate to a great extent.
1. Minify Render Blocking Resources
By default, JavaScript and CSS scripts are treated as of render blocking resource. These scripts do not let your browser render or upload content until the CSSOM is built. This whole process can increase website site loading time to a great extent.
Always try to keep your CSS and other render blocking resources lean. It is always a good idea to eliminate these scripts from the first fold of the content and move them to the bottom of the page just right before your body tag.
If you don’t know how to do that you may read a well explained 000webhost.com post on render-blocking JavaScript and CSS elimination in above-the-fold content. The WordPress user may consider installing Autoptimize plugin that helps in minimizing JavaScript.
2. Reduce HTTP Requests
Most of the experts believe by minimizing HTTP requests only, you can see a huge improvement in the speed of your website. So why not try this. The popular search engine Yahoo says, 80% of a web page load time is spent just on downloading the different elements of a web page such as scripts, images, style sheets, etc.
All these website elements get HTTP requests individually. Too many HTTP requests mean your page will take more time to render.
To fix it, you must consider removing unnecessary files out of your database. To check how many HTTP requests your website is currently making, use Google Chrome’s Network Panel.
3. Optimize Your Website Images
According to web performance experts, image optimization can be a good step to improve the performance of a website. Heavy images that have not been scaled properly can put unnecessary load on your server, resulting in poor loading time.
Don’t worry there are plenty of solutions when it comes to image optimization. You may use image compression tools like compressor.io, crush pics, Kraken, etc.
For WordPress users, image optimization is an even easier task. Plugins like Smush image can help website owners resize and compress their images with simple steps. The Smush plugin can optimize any kind of image up to 32 MB without reducing the quality of the image. Also, make sure all the images uploaded to your website are responsive.
4. Avoid Delay in Loading by Using Content Delivery Network
CDN or Content Delivery Network is a system of distributed networks that work jointly to offer your audience a fast experience of your website. In actual, CDN preserves the cached version of its content in multiple points of presence and serve your audience from the possible nearest server.
The major aim of CDN is to reduce the distance between your visitors and your server. In short, your users’ request will be fulfilled from the nearest server so that they can experience faster load time. Some of the popular CDN providers are MaxCDN, Sucuri, Akamai, Rackspace, Edge Cast, etc.
5. Leverage Cache Plugin (For WordPress Owners)
If you are running a WordPress site by using the Cache plugin only, you can notice a significant improvement in your website page. The caching plugin has a great impact on reducing excessive load out of servers.
They save generated HTML files in the cache and serve them next time a request is made for them. Instead of loading the all of the PHP scripts from WordPress they just serve cached version your website your audience. Some of the renowned cache plugins for WordPress are listed below.
WP Super Cache
WP Fastest Cache
Hyper Cache
Cachify
W3 Total Cache
6. Eliminate Bad Requests
Don’t forget to check for HTTP 404 or page not found errors. These errors can hugely impact your user experience. Users don’t like to visit a website that offers bad requests all too often. To check bad request you may use Online Broken Link Checker tool.
7. Review Your Hosting Plan
If you have gone through all of the tips mentioned above, but still not able to manage a good website speed for your users than it is time to review your hosting plan. If you hosting partner is not fast and reliable all of the above tips will be wasted.
Check with your hosting provider and type of plan you have chosen. Most of the basic plans do not provide enough bandwidth limits that can be another primary cause for slowing loading website. Don’t forget to check if your website needs a premium hosting plan. If your hosting provider is unable to provide a good service even for their premium customers, you must switch to some reliable hosting solution.
If you want to see more conversion and sales in 2018, you must consider following above-mentioned tips.