Is Slow Website Speed Affecting Your Business?
You have built an excellent site providing a tremendous number of facilities that just couldn’t go wrong. You have done your research about SEO and have included pieces of information that are sure to draw a genuine hit, yet you are lagging. If you have done all the initial setup meticulously and still cannot make it to the top ranks in Google’s search, there must be some other reason why people are not visiting your site. The speed of your page is as important as anything else when you are going online with your business idea.
There are several ways that a slow website speed could directly affect your presence. If you are a business flourishing online, a slower speed page means a lack of sales and thus a decrease in profit. Modern consumers live in a fast-paced internet world and waiting for a page to open is a big turn-off for them.
To understand this, you can do a simple test. Try opening the webpage of one your favorite local restaurant and see how long does it take. Does it open instantly? Or does it take some time to open it? If it is taking time, are you losing interest in the restaurant for the moment? Well yes, that is exactly what happens with a slow loading page. But, worry not, there are certain ways through which you can easily boost the speed of your page.
Increasing the Website Speed
Compressing Data:
One of the main features slowing down your website is pictures and video data which are unnecessary. Thus, decreasing the number of such files, or even compressing the data has a major effect in boosting the speed of your website. The “lazy loading” feature is also impressive- in this case, the image wouldn’t load in general and would only load when the user scrolls over it.
Mobile Optimization:
One of the most important things that you should do to reach the farthest among the masses is to make the website mobile-friendly. Everybody has a smartphone, and most often, every site is accessed through one of these cellular devices. A website for PC is much heavier than a mobile-friendly website and thus takes much longer to load on a mobile phone. The best way to design the website would be to ensure that they are optimized for the screen size and the device it is opened in.
Hosting Service Provider:
You cannot go online without a hosting service provider. A web host is an entity with the necessary equipment and resources to get a website online. It could be thought of like a giant computer with RAM and storage space that works to keep your website online. You must choose your web host very carefully because a lot relies on the web host for outstanding performance on the internet. You should try to avoid shared spaces or try to get rid of them as quickly as possible you.
Cache:
Whenever you open a new website on your smartphone or desktop, it asks whether it can store cookies in your system. Cookies are small bits of information about the website that allows you to start it faster the next time you open it. The process of saving these small bits of information in the user’s systems is called caching. This is a very important step that will help you to run your website faster, especially for users who are coming around for a second time and so on.
Less JavaScript and Less CSS:
A great way to make any webpage run efficiently is to monitor the loading process. You could have the background programming code written in such a way that it corresponds to the page design. In simpler terms, the page will open as the code is executed. Higher lines of the code are executed before the lower lines of the code. Thus, if the code is written in such a way that the higher lines load the top of the webpage and lower lines open the bottom of the webpage, the user could easily use the page. This will ensure that by the time the user reaches the end, the entire code will also be executed. However, this is very complicated and needs to be done only by an expert.
Remove All Unused Plugins:
If you are running your website through a platform like WordPress, you will get an awesome CMS (content managing system) with it. It helps you to keep your website updated with the latest features, plugins, and security measures, ultimately giving the users a grand experience. However, as you keep integrating new plugins to add new features, your storage is compromised which in turn leads to a slower website. Thus, removing unused and unnecessary plug-ins is an important step to keeping your website fast.