8 Steps to Boosting the Website Speed

Website Speed : Have you ever given up on a website that took too long to load? I'm sure I have.

Regrettably, Leo Tolstoy's famous adage "Patience and time are the two most potent soldiers" does not apply online.

Google considers website speed to be one of the most important ranking elements, and if your site takes too long to load, it will not only harm your search ranks, but also diminish page views, disturb user experience, and decrease conversions.

Here are some statistics to demonstrate how important site performance is:

·        Consumers expect a website to load in two seconds or less, with 40% abandoning a site that takes more than three seconds to load. (Image courtesy of Akamai)

·        A one-second delay in website loading results in 11 percent fewer page views, 16 percent lower customer satisfaction, and 7% lower conversions. (Image courtesy of Aberdeen Group)

Here are some statistics that demonstrate the advantages of speeding up your website:

       • Amazon reported a 1% boost in income for every 100 milliseconds their site speed was improved. (Image courtesy of Global Dots)

      • For every one second of improvement, Walmart saw a 2% increase in conversions. (Image courtesy of Global Dots)

     • Quick page loads are vital to 52 percent of online buyers when deciding whether or not to return to a site. (Image courtesy of Akamai)

TL;DR – The importance of site speed as a search engine ranking indication can no longer be overlooked.

As a result, I'm going to give 8 concrete strategies for speeding up your website speed  and improving your Google ranking.

But first, let's take a look at some strategies for improving the performance of your website Speed .

Please ensure that your website is up to date by utilising the following tools to evaluate it:

·         Google’s PageSpeed Insights

·         HubSpot’s Website Grader

·         GTMetrix

·         Varvy’s Pagespeed Optimization Tool

The services listed above will assess your website, find flaws, and provide you with a list of recommendations for correcting the issues.

Let's take a look at some of the speed strategies that every webmaster should consider.

Note: A couple of the site speed optimization techniques listed here are basic, while others are more complex. I strongly advise you to back up your site before implementing these suggestions!

8 Actionable Tips to Improve WebSite Speed

1)   Enable Caching in the Browser

One of the most important elements affecting page performance is the size of your website.

The code that makes up your page takes time for web browsers to download. When a browser loads a page from your website, it must download several elements such as the logo, CSS files, javascript files, and so on.

This means that when a person sees your website for the first time, they must wait for all of these components to download before viewing the content on your page.

When you enable browser caching, you can save some data on a visitor's computer so they don't have to wait for it to load every time they visit your Website.

You'll notice a considerable improvement in site performance as well as a better user experience as a result of this.

Adding some code to your server's.htaccess file is the best technique to enable browser caching.

2)   Image Optimization

You may increase the performance of your website by reducing the time it takes for your photos to load.

When it comes to picture optimization, four factors must be considered: scale, size, format, and the src attribute.

Scale

Crop your photographs to the correct size using an image editing application like Smart Resize. If your page is 600px wide, for example, resize the image to fit.

Size

The larger your image is, the longer it will take for your website to load. As a result, reduce the size of your photographs as much as feasible.

If you're using WordPress, WP Smush can help you shrink your photographs. Another method is to manually shrink each image before uploading it to your site using an internet tool like TinyPNG. TinyPNG will help you reduce the size of your image by 20 to 90%.

Format

After that, think about the image format:

·        The optimal format is JPEG. It should be used whenever possible.

·        PNG is the next best option, albeit it may not be completely supported by older browsers.

·        Only use GIFs for small or simple visuals, as well as animated images.

·        BMPs and TIFFs should be avoided.

Ensure that the majority of your site's photos are JPEGs.

Attribute src

After you've gotten the image's scale, size, and format just correct, it's time to double-check the code.

An image's HTML code includes the following:

<img src=””>

When there is no source in the quote marks, the browser sends a request to the page's directory or the page itself. This will place an unneeded stress on your server, reducing the time it takes for your website to load.

Pro Tip: When it comes to adding photographs to your blog entries, don't rush. Spend some time resizing and compressing the image. It's incredible how a 4MB image file can be shrunk by 90-95 percent while maintaining image quality.

3)   Select Compression from the drop-down menu.

You may substantially reduce the size of your page and improve the speed of your site by setting compression for your website.

Compression minimises the bandwidth used by your websites speed, resulting in a faster HTTP response time. It enables your web server to serve reduced file sizes, making your website load faster for your visitors.

Compression can lower HTML and CSS files by 50-70 percent, according to Yahoo.

Gzip, a method of compressing files for faster network transfers, can be used to enable compression.

4)   Decrease the time it takes for a server to respond.

The time it takes a web server to react to a request from a browser is known as server response time. As your website's traffic grows, so does the amount of server resources it consumes, resulting in a slow and sluggish website.
Google recommends a server response time of less than 200 milliseconds. If you follow all of the advice in this article, you'll be well on your way to lowering your website's server response time and improving its performance.

• What Is Google Sendbox and How to remove website from google sendbox . 

However, improving the quality and scope of your web hosting is a quick approach to minimise your website's server response time. This will, of course, necessitate a larger financial investment in your web hosting.

5)   Remove any plugins that aren't required.

If you have a WordPress website, there's a good possibility you've installed plugins you don't need anymore. Activating too many plugins has a negative impact on your website's performance, security, and makes it slow and sluggish.
Review your website's plugins at least once a month and eliminate those that you don't use frequently. Deactivate them one at a time, then use a tool like GTMetrix to assess server performance. This will enable you to locate plugins that are slowing down your website Speed.

6)   Reduce the number of HTTP requests

HTTP requests are the requests that your website sends to the server when someone views it.

Yahoo has the following to say regarding HTTP requests:

“The front-end accounts for 80% of the end-user response time. The majority of this time is spent downloading all of the page's components, such as pictures, stylesheets, scripts, and Flash. The number of HTTP queries necessary to render the page is reduced as the number of components is reduced. This is the key to making pages load faster.”

The speed strategies mentioned in this article can help you reduce HTTP requests on your website. As a result, here are some quick pointers:

·         Check the amount of HTTP requests your website currently makes using Google Chrome's Network tab.

·         Remove any unneeded pictures.

·         Optimize the rest of the images (see #2).

·         Make JavaScript work in a synchronous mode (check out this article for tips on how to do that)

7)   Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Delivery

The way CSS is utilised to render a webpage is referred to as CSS delivery.

This information is accessed by your website in one of two ways:

·        External CSS files must be loaded before your webpage can be rendered. The defacto way to handle CSS is to use an external CSS file, which has the advantage of being cached by a web browser.

·        Inline CSS codes: Inline CSS codes are instructions that are embedded directly in the HTML content.

8)  Redirects should be minimized.

Redirects should be used rarely because they increase the amount of HTTP requests, which increases your website's load time.
Google highly advises webmasters to reduce the amount of redirects or completely eliminate them.
The redirect mapper tool may be used to check for redirection on your site. You can also look through your.htaccess file for redirects that were set up for material that no longer exists.

Bonus Points

If you're still having problems with your website speed, you can improve its performance by doing the following:

•       Make use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) (We recommend Cloudflare)
•       On your website, keep the social sharing buttons to a minimum.
•        Prevent people from using your photographs as hotlinks (Check out this article to learn more)
•     Upgrade your web hosting plan (We recommend hosting plans from BlueHost and Namecheap)
•     Fix all of your website's broken links.
•      Updating your WordPress site is essential.
•      Update your WordPress theme and plugins.