Slow page loading speed is one of the most frustrating things in terms of user experience for visitors to any website. You need to understand that when it comes to usability, there may not be a second chance to create a good impression.

But it’s not only that! 

There are many reasons why website loading speed plays an important role, and some of the main ones are:

• Search engines (like Google) rank sites with high loading speeds higher than slower sites. This statement is valid for mobile search results.
• Fast sites have much better behavioral factors (bounce rate, repeat visits, time on page) and higher conversion rates.
• Modern users are impatient and always have an alternative. For commercial projects, failures due to low download speeds are a problem that directly affects profits.

In short, the owners of information sites lose traffic due to the low download speed, and the owners of commercial projects also lose money, coupled with reputational problems.

How to Check your Website’s Loading Speed?

There are many services for assessing loading speed, but we recommend that you first test your site using the following:

• GTmetrix: In our humble opinion, it may deserve the title of the best service for such purposes. Indicators are informative, data are pulled from several sources at the same time. For each of the proposed improvement items, you can get detailed information.
• Pingdom Tools: It generates informative and colorful reports. The good thing is that it allows you to choose servers for the test in different places of the world, which is good for sites focused on international traffic. In addition to the possibility of free verification, there is a paid plan with advanced features.
• Google Pagespeed Insights or Google Page Speed Services: A free tool from Google that you can use to test your site’s performance and get tips on how to improve it. Measures metrics for desktops and mobile devices separately.

If we talk about what download speed is considered normal, and when it is worth doing optimization, then the range of numbers will be approximate as follows:

• up to 1 second: ideal;
• 1-3 seconds – Above average;
• 3-6 seconds is an average;
• more than 7 seconds is bad.

So what do you need to do in order to speed up your site? Indeed, you can take assistance from the best SEO service company to help you improve the website loading speed. Anyhow, here in this article, we are revealing the main factors that affect download speed the most.

How to Improve WebPage Speed?

Reduce Image Sizes

Image files usually contribute the bulk of the total weight of a web page. Accordingly, the easiest way to improve loading speed is to reduce the size of your image files. With the help of graphic editors or specialized online services, this can be done quickly and easily.

For some CMS, there are specialized plugins, for example, for WordPress, which allow you to compress images in batch mode.

Use Caching and CDN

The abbreviation CDN stands for Content Delivery Networks technology, the essence of which is that copies of data are stored on servers located in different geographic locations. The user who went to the site receives data from the server that is closest to him. Thus, the minimum download speed is achieved for visitors from different countries.

This advice can be called relevant only for projects focused on the international market. For a website that targets one country, this is not necessary.

Disable Unnecessary Scripts

Various scripts, modules, and plugins increase the load on the site due to the fact that they generate additional queries to the database, load various elements, etc. In addition, outdated scripts that have not received updates for a long time pose a security threat.

Over time, the number of plugins and modules on any site grows. But some of them are not used, and some of their functionality can be implemented through minor edits to the site itself. Take a small inventory of the plugins connected and all that is not needed – delete.

Use Minimal Design

Simplifying your website design can also increase your loading speed. One of the reasons for this is that this reduces the number of requests to various elements of the site, including graphics and scripts. Fewer elements, therefore fewer requests = minimum time to render the page.

An added benefit of minimalist, simple designs is an improved user experience. Numerous studies confirm that simplified designs are rated more favorably by users than their visually complex counterparts.

Optimize your Code (CSS, JavaScript and HTML)

Reducing the size of style files, layout, and other elements that make up a web resource also allows the website to increase speed. For example, even just removing spaces and comments in your code can achieve the desired effect. Also, all files can be combined into one, and then the browser, instead of two dozen requests, will be limited to one.

Fortunately, manual work is not needed in this matter, for almost any modern engine you can find the corresponding plugins. If your site is powered by WordPress, check out Autoptimize, Fast Velocity Minify, and WP Super Minify.

Optimize your Database Queries

Any interactive elements and other functionality that provides for data updating create additional queries to the site database. It also stores certain service information, for example, page revisions, comments, and other similar data.

Over time, all this accumulates and makes the site more and more “clumsy” and slow. Therefore, database optimization is an effective way to improve performance. For example, you can remove outdated and unnecessary information, and implement the functionality of some plugins and third-party elements at the code level, in the same theme template.

The Problem Could be Hosting or CMS

Sometimes the root of the problem may not be in media files, outdated scripts, or an unoptimized database. It happens that the main reason for the slow operation of a website is the hosting on which it is located. The current resources may simply not be enough initially, and with an increase in the load (many pages and high traffic), the hosting begins to serve your site files extremely slowly.

Fortunately, the choice in this regard is now more than sufficient. A relatively inexpensive VPS with an SSD and several gigabytes of RAM can cost as little as $ 10-20. And in return, you will get not only high speed but also a power reserve with a good backlog.

Concluding Remarks

Improving website loading speed provides a number of important benefits, even in the short term, and in the long term, they become especially noticeable. Improving user experience, ranking in search results, and increasing profits from the site are more than weighty arguments to start working in this direction.

We hope the recommendations in this article will be useful to you. If you have something to supplement it from your own experience, or after reading, you have any questions – write in the comments!

Thank you for reading!