Site speed is one of the most important factors that decide a website’s performance. If the site speed is good, then the traffic and conversion rate on a site will be higher.
It is so because site speed is one of the Google ranking factors. Thus, Google ranks those sites which run swiftly. Moreover, the audience tends to visit a site that helps its audience in going through its pages quickly.
On the contrary, if the site speed is low, the traffic and conversion rate drop slowly. That’s why you should emphasize making your site run fast to achieve better results.
Therefore, this blog post will highlight the steps you take to speed up your website.
Tips to Make Your Site Run Fast
A fast-loading website is mandatory for keeping visitors engaged and preventing them from abandoning your site. To improve your site speed, you can take the following measures:
Get Your Images in The Right Size
The primary element behind slow-loading websites is large images, which consume two-thirds of a web page. Therefore, if the pictures are larger, the web page will take too long to load, impacting the site speed negatively. That’s why it is necessary to reduce the size of your images to get them in the optimized size for better performance. There are different ways that you can adopt to optimize the image size.
Nevertheless, the best method to do so is to take help from online image compression, as it optimizes the file size without affecting the quality of the photos.
In addition, you can compress your pictures in specific sizes as per your need which usually happens in the case of JPG and JPEG images when you have to get them ready for profile pictures or banner images as they have specific size requirements.
For example, if you have to compress JPEG to 200kb, you can benefit from this technique without making much manual effort. Many online image compressors on the web can convert image to JPG 200kb and other sizes in no time.
Moreover, you don’t have to install any program to use them. Rather than that, all you have to do is to paste your images in the assigned box of an image compressor, perform 2-3 simple steps, and they will get compressed.
Enable Browser Caching
Enabling browser caching is an effective way to make a website load faster. When users visit a website, their browser downloads all the resources required to display the site, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images. If the browser caching is enabled, the browser will store some of these resources on the user’s computer, allowing the site to load faster on subsequent visits. By holding these resources locally, the browser can quickly retrieve them instead of having to download them again from the web server. As a result, it reduces the time it takes for the website to load, improving the user experience.
Enabling browser caching is an easy process that involves adding cache headers to the website’s server configuration. These headers instruct the browser to store specific resources for a certain period, typically measured in seconds or minutes.
Consequently, it reduces the amount of data that needs to be transferred between the server and the browser, reducing the load on the server and improving the site’s performance.
Add a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed server network located in various locations. Adding a CDN to your website can significantly improve its performance by reducing the time it takes for content to reach the user’s browser.
When a user requests to view your website, the request is sent to the closest server in the CDN network. This server will then provide the requested content, such as images, videos, or scripts, to the user’s browser.
Using a CDN reduces the distance between the server and the user, resulting in faster load times. Additionally, a CDN can improve website performance by offloading some processing and bandwidth usage from the origin server. As a result, it can reduce server load and enhance website availability, especially during peak traffic periods.
Therefore, adding a CDN to your website can improve its performance by reducing the latency and improving the speed of content delivery. It can lead to a better user experience, improved search engine rankings, and increased website traffic.
Minimize HTTP Requests
Minimizing the HTTP requests can also improve the site speed. It is so because every time a web page is loaded, the browser sends multiple HTTP requests to the server to download all the necessary files, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images.
Each request pressurizes the main servers, which can result in slower page loading times. That’s why you should minimize HTTP requests to enhance the site speed. To do so, you can combine multiple Java and CSS files into one file each. In addition, you can also use CSS sprites to combine small images into one large image, reducing the number of image requests. This, along with regularly monitoring server ports for efficient communication, will significantly improve the site performance and user experience, leading to more user engagement and conversions.
Conclusion
These are some common approaches that you can take to make your site run at an optimized pace. As a result, the traffic flow and conversion rate on your site will get better as compared to the situation if you don’t take such measures.
