Nobody likes to wait on a slow website. Do you know that the average desktop Time to First Byte (TTFB) speed is 1.286 seconds on desktop and 2.594 seconds on mobile? That means the average time it takes to fully load a webpage is 10.3 seconds on desktop and 27.3 seconds on mobile. That is why one of the key factors that Google uses to determine your rank is page speed.
Why Speed Matter?
Speed is a very essential factor because faster load times help you improve your page ranking and gain good organic traffic to your website. But as your website grows with time, the content you add to your website also increases, resulting in speed issues. The slower the website, the more data it will use. This could lead you to lose a considerable number of customers.
Hence, site speed optimization becomes vital for your business because the better your website performs, the more satisfied the users will be. And the longer time people spend on your pages, the more time they have to consume your content and actually convert. As per statistics, sites that load in five seconds see 70% longer conversion rates.
So, it won’t be wrong to say that your website speed plays a crucial role in deciding whether it ranks higher or not. Let us know the optimal website speed that will attract a good number of customers to your page.
Optimal Website Speed to Reach Wide Audience
Well, optimal website speed depends on the kind of website and the type of audience that you are targeting. However, you can measure your site performance speed through several tools available. Check Your Website Speed here. Ideally, the optimal website load time is 2-3 seconds, and a 2-second delay in load time results in up to 87% abandonment rates. So, timely web performance optimization is highly required. But what is Web Performance Optimization?
Web Performance Optimization
Web performance optimization refers to the speed at which the web pages are downloaded and displayed on the user’s web browser. The performance of any website has always been a critical factor. A site that performs smoothly will automatically turn it into a better user experience and thereby increase revenues. Therefore, website performance optimization should always be your top priority, especially with such substantial online competition going on in the digital world.
10 Techniques to Speed up Website
Now that you know what the optimal website speed and web performance optimization are, let us talk about 10 techniques to speed up site to increase your website speed. Here are a few points that will help you to speed up your website:
1. Choose a Light WordPress Theme
WordPress is considered one of the most popular content management systems, but most WordPress-based sites are not well optimized. In fact, many businesses end up using heavy WordPress themes. To avoid that, upload small file sizes and try to spend fewer server requests. The themes that have excessive code slow down web pages. So, make sure you keep it lightweight.
2. Optimize Your Images
You can use good picture tools such as Picture fill, Adaptive Images, or Adobe Express free profile picture maker to resize and compress your image files. It will help you save bandwidth and improve the page speed for your site.
3. Enable Caching
If you didn’t know, the browser caching stores cached versions of static resources that help quicken your page’s speed and reduce the server lag. This means that your browser will save a lot of requests to your server.
4. Clean up Your Database Frequently
Your WordPress site is used a lot, so your database becomes clogged with unnecessary files and slows down performance. By cleaning out your database of unnecessary files, you can speed up everything.
5. Use WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins help you optimize your website images and speed and ensure that the audiences who visit your site have a good time experience. Remember that poor or outdated plugins can slow down the performance of your website drastically.
For example:
6. Web Page Designing
The web pages need to be designed in an optimal way that promotes fast rendering. Only after improving website design, your website can perform smoothly and generate more significant leads. In order to prevent page speed issues, you can opt for a good host, a good CDN, and a good theme/design.
7. Responsive Themes for Mobile
A responsive WordPress theme is the best way to make your site mobile-friendly. Hence, using these responsive themes will ensure that your website is adaptable and displays on smaller screens in the best way possible.
8. Combine Your Images into CSS Sprites
Having several images on your page will force multiple roundtrips of the server to secure your resources, which will eventually slow down your page speed. Hence it is advisable to use Sprites, as it combines all the background images into one single image. Put your CSS as close to the top of your page as possible, as browsers won’t render your page before rendering the CSS file.
9. Compress Your Content
To improve your website performance, you can compress your content significantly. You can use some popular web servers such as Apache, IIP, and GZIP compression algorithms for this, and it will do it automatically on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But out of all, Gzip works the best by compressing your files into a zip file, which is faster for the user’s browser to load.
10. Configure Your Expired Headers
How long your files will be stored on the computer is determined by the file header’s expiration date, which is usually set to 24 hours by default. Configure the expired header, so your files never time out and won’t impact your server and page load time.
Hence, you must ensure that your site’s performance is maintained to increase its speed and prevent a significant loss.
Takeaway
Now that you are aware of 10 simple ways to increase website speed, always try to apply a simple yet effective approach towards it. Test the speed of your website and prioritize the pages and features that require the most attention. This will help you reach the targeted audience and lead you to more significant traffic on your webpage. If you need help, feel free to Web development company UK. Consult us today!
