Did you know that more than 50% of your website visitors will leave if your pages take more than 3 seconds to load? Such an unbelievable fact should make you become more focused on page speed and how to optimize it.
Not only that slow loading web pages deter visitors, but they also reduce conversions and make your audience think that your website is unprofessional. Keep reading to learn why page loading speed matters so much and what you can do to improve it!
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The Online World Is All About Speed!
The website-loading speed standards are set very high on the internet. That’s because this is what visitors, clients, and business owners want. When you surf on the internet and stumble upon a slow-loading website, you probably close that page immediately and find another website to access the information you want.
Website loading speed matters because no one has time or patience to wait for a slow website. There are millions of websites out there, so why would anyone waste time on a slow website when you can visit another one that loads faster? That’s why you need to learn how to make web pages load faster because the continuity of your business depends on it. The speed of your website influences your traffic, your conversions, sales, and overall credibility.
Use Online Tools to Understand How Page Speed Works
Optimizing your website to increase loading speed is a complex task. Luckily, many online tools can help you in this regard. These tools independently analyze your web pages and discover design flaws and errors that can be corrected. Some of these online tools are completely free and they can be used for any website, regardless of its nature.
For example, Page Speed Insights is a tool developed by Google that can analyze any web page and offer you interesting information such as the speed index, what tweaks to make to improve speed, etc. This tool is free to use, so you should definitely check it out.
GTmetrix is another efficient tool that can help you improve website speed and performance. It analyzes multiple variables related to your website such as redirects and CSS data. You can use this tool to learn more about your web pages and understand how they work.
Finally, Pingdom is another reliable tool you can use for improving website performance. You can start your free trial to see how to application works and then continue with a paid membership if you’re satisfied with it. This tool monitors your performance, uptime, and sends real-time alerts if something goes wrong with your website. You can also use it to quickly improve the speed of your website without having to be an expert in programming.
Simple Things You Can Do to Increase Website Speed
Apart from using the tools mentioned above, there are also other simple things you can try to improve the speed of your web pages. Here are just a few useful examples:
1. Decrease the Size of Your Images
A web page without an image is like a sky without stars. Images add color and personality to your website and you should use them often. However, make sure that you resize them to a smaller resolution. That’s because if an image is very large (such as 2MB or higher), it will take a lot of time to be downloaded. This increases web page load time.
Keep in mind that not everyone around the world has a fast internet connection. If someone lands on your website and it takes a lot of time for the page to load, the visitor might quit out of frustration and you lose one potential client.
2. Make Sure That You Use Caching
When it comes to websites and web pages, caching refers to allowing data to be stored in a temporary storage area to increase loading speed. When visitors come to your website, most of the data will be already prepared for download and display, so they don’t have to wait for a long period of time until they access the information they want.
You should enable caching on your website to make your web pages load faster. There are special plugins and tools you can use to do that. These tools also contain instructions and guidance, so even if you don’t have a background in IT, you can still find your way around easily.
3. Make Sure That You Shrink Your HTML and CSS Files
Various plugins, applications, and tools use JavaScript and CSS files to display and access information. However, these files can become very large as more and more pieces of code are written. As a result, your web pages might load slower because the CSS files are not properly optimized.
You can fix that by accessing these text files and removing lines of break as well as redundant pieces of code. This process is a bit complex, but there are plenty of tutorials online that can help you do just that.
4. Pick Your Web Hosting Company Carefully
There are many companies out there that offer web hosting plans. As you can expect, some companies offer better services than others because they have better IT infrastructure. Make sure that you choose your web hosting provider carefully. You should put an emphasis on speed and reliability with little to no downtime at all. Next time you choose a web hosting provider, ask about loading speed and how can you get the fastest connection possible.
Now You Know How to Tackle Slow Loading Web Pages
As you can see, slow loading web pages can be a real obstacle for your online business, but one you can easily overcome. Keep in mind that increasing web page speed is a continuous process, but now you know where to start and what to do next.
At the same time, we are aware that improving page loading speeds can also be a time-consuming job. In this case, make sure that you contact us today! We specialize in optimizing the performance of various websites and our specialists have years of experience in website design and development.
