
As any website owner knows, traffic means money. If one’s website is running slow, it may decrease traffic and they must be looking for Website Speed Optimization. Browsers are usually impatient when using the Internet, and if one’s website is taking too long to load, the likelihood of them clicking out increases. Thus, ensuring that one’s website is running at top optimal speed is crucial. This article will examine how to transform one’s clunker of a web page into a fast, optimized page that will generate plenty of traffic.
Why Should I Optimize?
A brief explanation of why page speed optimization is crucial is a recent release from Google stating that it is going to begin to rank web pages based on speed. If one wishes to keep ahead over the competition, then optimizing the speed is necessary. Otherwise, one’s ranking will decrease, which means that browsers could very likely stop off at the competitor’s site instead of one’s own page.
How fast should one’s site load? Google states that three seconds is the optimal website speed. There is a significant increase bounce–the percentage of browsers leaving the site–after the three-second interval has passed. To demonstrate the dramatic change, just at five seconds, there’s a bounce of 38%. Clearly, website speed optimization is crucial.
How to Optimize Speed: Images
There are quite a few methods one can take to increase their website speed. Decreasing the download time of images could be a step one takes. Optimizing images can save one decent time. Do this by using Adobe Photoshop and taking non-GIF files and simply saving them to Save for Web in the File folder. This will reduce the image by 70%, increasing the download speed of those images.
If the image is important, and one is not comfortable in reducing its size, one can set the image as part of the background. Since browsers download background images last, users will be able to access the page quickly, simply by placing it in the external CSS code.
How to Optimize Speed: Coding
Fine combing one’s HTML code could decrease download time as well. Deleting white space, line returns, and comment tags can free up space as well. Also taking out unnecessary JavaScript and META tags and content should increase website speed optimization as well.
Simply cutting down the coding will aid speed as well, since it requires less processing. Browner hacks to CSS are in abundance nowadays, getting rid of those keeps the CSS small and efficient. Even positioning one’s code could make one’s page slow or fast. Ensuring that the CSS code is inside the head section, while JavaScript is in the body, will make the browser show the CSS content immediately after download.
CSS Delivery has some little tricks one can use to speed up the page as well. Not using @import call and removing unused CSS are both good ways to begin. Also, make sure one is not using CSS in HTML, for example, in the H1 or DIV tags. This will also increase download speed. There are WordPress Solutions one can use to aid in minimizing code. Those tools include Autoptimize, WP Rocket, Cache Enabler, CloudFlare CDN, and W3 Total Cache.
How to Optimize Speed: Plugins
Plugins are popular on websites, and while some can be useful for analytics and traffic generation, by and large, plugins often are just taking up useful space and dragging the speed of the page. One should ask oneself if the plugin is efficient and worth keeping around for the price of lag. If it isn’t, then trim it out. Not all plugins need to be removed, but those who have become redundant or obsolete.
One can check the plugin performance by using the following solutions: NewRelic and Query Monitor. If the plugins are performing well, keep them. One may find that a number of plugins working unique, numerous tasks are actually faster than one plugin attempting to do all of the work on its own.
Get Started:
As one can see, there are numerous ways to increase page speed. Don’t delay to Website Speed Optimization to some one’s website. As demonstrated, every second could cost a loss in business and traffic profit.