User satisfaction is absolutely necessary for a website to gain momentum in the vast world of Google rankings. Selling products or services is also far less likely if the company’s website lags. In a world where almost anything can be done in an instant, no one finds pleasure in waiting. Take into consideration a few of these tips if your website is in need of a speed boost.
Minimize Load Time or Risk Losses
Three seconds or less—that’s how long a website has to kick into gear before users will exit out of the page. Five seconds will result in a 90% bail rate. Minimize your page’s load time with the help of what’s offered on this site, or risk losing potential customers and or clients. If your company doesn’t have the funding for special features, then look into strategies that anyone can follow to reduce load time. Careful coding is key for all websites. By using WordPress, you won’t have any coding issues so long as themes and plug-ins are solid.
Figure out your website’s average load time. There are several free tools that can measure your website’s performance. Once you’ve done that, you can begin taking steps to alleviate any serious issues with your website that could be causing you losses. Speed tests report issues that are common amongst all websites. Don’t be too bothered if there are several tweaks you need to make to your site. Just like there are many things that can go wrong with a site, there are many ways to fix it, too.
Crack Down on HTTP Requests
Scripts, stylesheets, images, or other parts that have to download on your page, remember that an HTTP request has to be sent for each one of these. The fewer HTTP requests sent, the quicker the load time. So, in the case of websites, less is usually more.
File Compression
Roughly 66% of users say they prefer to see at least three pictures of the product they’re buying before making the purchase. So, images on your website are a vital part of user satisfaction. Images can slow load time quite a bit, so compressing them is crucial in improving site speed.
Your server should compress files before they send them. This will take some of the workload off the browser and allow it to work faster. Popular browsers should be able to read the compression technique of choice, and will otherwise choke on the information you’re trying to push through it. This will cause a lag that will make potential users and clients drop like flies. GZIP compression is the best way to go for optimal web page speed. Do keep in mind that GZIP will not work on images, but enabling GZIP compression for other files is as easy as installing a plug-in for WordPress users.
Subtract Pointless Plugins
Speaking of plugins, WordPress has tens of thousands of them, and while they may not cost you any money, they’ll cost you speed. Databases have to process queries for every plugin on your site. The more plugins the more concentrated the database, which equals more load time. It’s best if you remove all plugins that don’t serve a valuable purpose on your website.
Pick a Strong Host
Selecting a weak host is detrimental to a website. Many of the hoops you jump through to speed up your website will be for nothing if you’ve picked a bad host. A solid host should have a load time between 0.7-0.8 seconds. It’s possible that no matter what optimization methods you enforce, your website will not stay within the do-or-die time span of three seconds.
There are three hosting options:
Shared hosting
VPS hosting
Dedicated server
Enable Caching
Pieces of the sites you visit are temporarily stored in a cache on your hard drive. This means that another HTTP request will not need to be sent to the server when you visit the page again. So, your page will load faster for people who have visited your page before. A W3 cache will work on a WordPress site and can be enabled in general settings.
Statistics show that almost 90% of users will leave a site, shopping cart full and all, if a site take over three seconds to load. 43% of those shoppers will pop right over to competitor pages at the first sign of resistance. There is literally no time to waste when it comes to your website. If traffic and authority is a goal at all for your website, then adhere to a few of these tips and you’ll be on your way to a more momentous page.