Website loading time is among the major ranking signals of Google and other search engines. Search and buying patterns of customers are changing. Mobile search on the boom, speed matters the most. The overall website loading speed is different from an individual page speed. Many people get confused about it.
In this article, we will have a look at some of the best tips to improve the website loading speed. This will help you boost your SEO and gain more customers. If you don’t have an in-house team to manage your site, it’s always recommended to outsource your work to a professional SEO services company.
1. Compress images
Images are a vital part for any website. It helps with a better understanding of products or services. But, the images present on the website don’t have to be of very big sizes. This is because large-size images will increase the overall loading speed of the website.
To ensure high-quality images with a faster loading speed, you need to compress all the images. You can use any third-party image compression tool. This kind of tool helps you reduce the image size. It helps retain good quality. Does your site has too many decorative images that are not adding any value to users? Consider reducing them immediately.
2. Minimize the HTTP requests
The second major reason for a slow website is too many HTTP requests from the servers. When there are several unnecessary requests, then it automatically increases the loading speed of your site. To ensure there are optimized HTTP requests. Elements like images, JS, CSS request for HTTP from the server and makes the website slow.
For reducing this, you need to figure out how many requests are generated each time and from where they are coming. You can check them by going into the Google Chrome’s Developer Tools option. There you will find all the necessary details. Once you figure out files that are unnecessary and they are still getting loaded every time, then you should remove them.
3. Minify JS and CSS
Minifying is the simple process of removing all the unnecessary files that are loading every time someone visits the site. This step can bring drastic results to your site and improve your SEO. If you have to build your site or some pages using a builder, then there are high chances that there will be more such files on your site.
You can use free third-party tools to minify and combine such files and it will help you achieve excellent loading speed for your site. It happens oftentimes that the page builders add extra code to the page which is of no use but it consumes resources along with other vital files. Minify process helps you in clearing the clutter and make your site faster.
4. Reduce the permanent redirects
Everyone uses website redirects for several possible reasons but those redirects are not always good for your site’s loading speed. Redirects for important pages are necessary and we can’t eliminate that. But, on the other side, there are several such redirects that are of no use and they are gradually slowing down the site.
Use any link analyzer tool to scan your site and check for all the unnecessary redirects that you can eliminate without hurting the user experience. By keeping the number of redirections to a minimum, you will improve both speed and SEO of your site.
5. Leverage browser caching
This is among the most useful features that every website owner should use to keep their website’s performance top-notch. For those who don’t know the browser caches plenty of information to serve to the visitors when they visit next time. When you use these features, the browser will not have all the resources again for the returning visitor and hence the site will load faster. For doing this, you will need the help of a developer.
6. Always use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)
CDNs are highly useful implementations that help you achieve the maximum performance of your site in no time. A content delivery network or a CDN distributes the content load of your website and hence it helps in faster loading of your site. There are several platforms like Cloudflare that let you start for free and manage all your websites at the same place.
By integrating the CDN, you can check how much resources and time the CDN has saved for you. If you are running an eCommerce site that has so many pages, images, requests, it becomes even more important for you to leverage a content delivery network.
These were some of the important tips that you can follow to boost your website’s loading speed and gain significant benefits over others. A faster loading site will not only improve your overall SEO but also help you gain more customers without doing anything extra.