One question that every website owner should ask himself is whether his website is fast or not. This is not at all any trick question because the page load is capable of impacting almost everything right from the time the users are staying on the website to ranking on the search engines. Website speed is extremely important and that cannot be overlooked. The website speed is important irrespective of whether your users are going to surf from the mobile devices or the desktop. You need to understand that your website has to load fast and it has to load fast almost everywhere without fail.
To do this, you can conduct a Google Page Speed test to understand the speed of the website. Based on the results that you get, you can consider making certain changes so that you can make your website as fast as lightning.
Given below is a list of tips that you need to follow when you are concentrating on the speed of your website.
Start caching
Caching is responsible for storing important components of the website with the cache memory of the users so that when they are coming back, nothing has to be downloaded. Therefore, when your visitor is coming to your website for the first time, it is true that it is going to take three seconds for the website to load. However, if the visitor is visiting frequently, the time is reduced to almost 1 second or less because the data is stored already. Indeed, caching is not going to be beneficial for the new visitors but it is one of the best speed savers for your returning visitors and for people who are browsing different pages within your site.
Optimize images
There is no denying the fact that images are important for businesses, as stated by https://www.inc.com. There are still some website owners, who are constantly uploading full-size images on the pages. This is one of the worst speed killers you need to know about. Ensure that you are cropping images and giving them a proper shape as well as size before you are uploading them. Do not forget to compress the file size and ensure that you are not compromising on the visual elements. Save in tiny formats like JPEG format. All this can be done on your own on different photo editing tools, easily.
Embed bigger files
Big files are capable of sucking the bandwidth out of the website. The reason behind this is that they cannot be managed or compressed. Ensure that you are taking these files down from the website. Make use of media embeds for pulling this information from the external platforms of hosting.
Take care of JavaScript
Everything cool, which is happening on the website, is undoubtedly the product of JavaScript. This can start getting heavy. However, you need to ensure that you are following the tips that have been mentioned below so that you can take care of the load speed of the website.
- Use asynchronous loading for the JavaScript files: This is responsible for speeding up all the pages because every file is loaded simultaneously, as opposed to top to bottom. The trick with this kind of loading is that if one file is getting stuck, it is not going to stop the other files from loading. This is one of the biggest benefits of asynchronous loading.
- Defer JS files from loading: You need to instruct certain JS files, most importantly the large files, which do not affect immediate functionality, to load after the loading of the different other elements have been completed.
- Optimize as well as minify: This is responsible for making a great sense because the small files are going to load faster. Make sure that you are not forgetting to minify the JavaScript.
- Ensure that you are putting JavaScript right at the bottom of the files: Other elements along with the JavaScript do not load together perfectly. Make sure that you are solving this problem by letting the HTML content load before the JavaScript.
Eliminate unnecessary redirects
If you are still focusing on redirecting pages from almost two redesigns ago, you must stop it. This is going to kill the load time. While certain redirects are necessary, you need to ensure that you are keeping them a minimum. You can use tools for figuring out the redirects that are active and eliminate those which you do not know of. This is ideal for optimization and your website will also perform in a much better manner. Contacting professionals of Atomic Design Nashville web design to know more about the speed of web pages is a great idea.
Pick the ideal hosting
The appropriate hosting account is capable of making or breaking speed. If you have already tried all the fixes that have been mentioned above and you are still facing issues of speed, you should blame your host. With the number of available choices, it can be extremely difficult for you to find an ideal hosting plan. When you are choosing a hosting for speed, you must choose dedicated servers. The most important choice for most of the website owners is undoubtedly VPS hosting, which is going to offer a fast load time and most importantly, you will not have to manage hosting on your own.
Minimize several HTTP requests
The total page elements that have to be downloaded whenever users are coming to the website are responsible for dramatically impacting the load time. This is responsible for including everything from your scripts to style sheets to images. The ideal solution is making use of combined files for reducing the total number of requests. This means combining all CSS in a single style sheet and combining scripts as and when possible.
Strip out unnecessary plugins
Nothing is going to weigh down your website in comparison to plugins running almost every time. You must consider getting rid of the plug-in redundancies. Stop using plugins for things that you can do on your own. This will help in making sure that your website speed is not being affected.
Conclusion
The website speed is one of the most important things that you need to take care of. Ensure that you are going through the tips that have been mentioned above so that you can take the necessary steps for increasing the speed of your website.
