Website speed optimisation refers to improving a website’s load time and overall performance. It involves various strategies, such as compressing images, minimising code, and reducing server response times.
Fast-loading websites enhance user experience by providing smooth, quick access to content, reducing frustration and bounce rates. In addition, website speed optimisation plays a crucial role in SEO, as search engines like Google use page speed as a ranking factor.
This page covers multiple strategies for optimising website speed, ensuring a better user experience and improved search engine visibility.
Key Takeaways:
- Website speed significantly impacts user experience, search engine rankings, and conversions.
- A one-second delay can reduce conversion rates by up to 7%, affecting revenue and engagement.
- Faster websites rank higher on search engine results, improving visibility.
- Slow-loading elements harm usability, increasing bounce rates and frustrating users.
Importance of Website Speed Optimisation
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Website speed optimisation is an essential aspect of modern web development, significantly affecting user experience, search engine rankings, and conversions. Most businesses build websites to increase brand awareness and generate money. Regardless of your objective, you need to get traffic to your site.
Here are the reasons why you should optimise website speed:
Conversions
A conversion occurs when a visitor to your website completes a desired action. For example, every purchase counts as a conversion if you have an eCommerce website. If you sell a service, every subscription counts as a conversion. A fast website is more likely to get conversions than a slow site. According to HubSpot, a one-second delay can hurt conversion rates by up to 7%.
Visibility
Your website’s load time affects its visibility online, especially in search results. Page speed is one of the critical factors used by Google and other search engines to rank sites in search results. A slow website provides a poor user experience, which means it has a lower search ranking. Conversely, a fast website offers an optimal user experience, and Google rewards it by ranking it on the first page of search results.
Usability
Usability refers to the ease of using a product. A website should be easy to navigate so users can quickly find what they want. If you fail to optimise website speed, some elements will take longer to load than others. For instance, the background image of your site may load gradually, especially on devices with limited processing power. If this happens to the navigation or search bar, it hurts the usability since users cannot quickly find what they are after.
A slow-loading webpage leaves the impression that the entire site is slow. To avoid frustrating visitors and reduce your bounce rate, you must find ways to improve load time.
7 Website Speed Optimisation Strategies You Need to Start Practicing
Now that you know the importance of a fast website, you need to optimise it by fixing errors and following the best practices. Here are some of the most trusted website speed optimisation strategies that can help improve your site’s performance and searchability.
Solve 404 Errors
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Nothing is as frustrating as clicking on a link that returns a 404 error. Such incidents significantly hurt the user experience on your website.
From a website owner’s perspective, 404 error pages slow down a website because they take up space without offering value to the audience. Too many broken links can also harm your efforts to rank high on search results. The best solution to this challenge is removing the 404 error pages.
Alternatively, you can create a 301 redirect, redirecting anyone who clicks on the broken link to another page on your website. If your 404 error pages receive a lot of traffic, it is better to use the second approach to avoid losing them.
Implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
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Another way to optimise website speed is to implement accelerated mobile pages (AMPs). AMPs render stripped-down versions of your web pages so that the user gets the most critical information. They improve website speed by removing images, videos, and any visual content that slows down the site’s loading speed.
The only problem with AMPs is that they can limit the functionality of websites that rely heavily on visual content, such as eCommerce websites. They are ideal for blogs and informational websites.
Use Website Caching
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Sometimes, a website loads slowly if many people try to access it simultaneously. This is because the web servers are overwhelmed by the high number of requests.
The solution to this problem is caching, which stores the current version of your website on the host server until the next update. When you cache your website, it does not render or send requests to the central server whenever a user tries to access it.
The approach you use for website caching depends on the platform on which your website runs. If your site is built on WordPress, it is as easy as installing a plugin. You can find the caching option in the settings if you use VPS or dedicated hosting. Caching is usually unavailable if you are using a shared hosting server.
Optimise Images
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Image optimisation is critical to improving load time. Users will likely leave your site if images take too long to load. The best way of optimising images is by uploading the smallest possible version of the picture. For example, if your page width is 500 pixels, your photos should not exceed that figure.
However, you should ensure that your images are not too small. Small images appear blurred and pixelated when zoomed in, which can harm your website’s reputation. Before you upload an image, test it to confirm that it displays correctly on all screen sizes.
Use Prefetching Techniques
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Prefetching involves reading and executing instructions before a user initiates them. This popular technique is helpful if you are looking to increase website speed. It works by anticipating user actions on your website and executing them in advance. For example, if your audience likes to click on a particular button, it will load first every time they visit the site.
Most browsers support prefetching by default because they log users’ actions. However, user experience experts are better equipped to understand user behaviour and implement prefetching more effectively.
There are three types of prefetching:
- DNS prefetching allows the browser to change domain names into IP addresses quickly.
- Link prefetching is useful when you are sure a user will take a specific action, such as clicking the checkout button. For example, if a visitor adds an item to the shopping cart, your site can prefetch a link prompting them to confirm the order.
- Pre-rendering is a technique where a website displays some of the elements of a webpage in advance.
If you want to optimise website speed by prefetching, you need to understand the actions of your audience.
Minification
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Reducing clients’ requests to web servers is an excellent way to optimise website speed. You should permanently remove all unnecessary HTML, CSS and JavaScript elements from your website.
Minification is particularly useful for inline JavaScript and external files that are not cached. According to Google, you should minify all JavaScript elements that exceed 4096 bytes (4 kB) in size. You should reduce the size by at least 25 bytes to improve load time.
Database Optimisation
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Consider optimising your database to increase site speed. A website with a content management system with several plugins has a massive database, which results in slower loading speeds.
For example, WordPress records comments, blog posts and other files that take up huge chunks of your database storage. It is worth noting that every CMS has its unique optimisation configuration. With WordPress, you only have to install a plugin to optimise your database.
How to Measure Website Speed: Tools for Testing and Monitoring
Before optimising your website’s speed, you must conduct tests to ascertain the reasons behind the slow speeds. Then, you should use the findings to set performance goals.
According to Google, your website should load within two seconds – anything slower will likely disappoint visitors and increase your bounce rates. With only a few websites meeting this standard, you can capitalise on this opportunity if you improve website speed.
Here is a summary of the different tools you can use to measure website speed:
1. Google PageSpeed Insights
Google’s PageSpeed Insights is one of the most widely used tools for testing website speed. It provides detailed performance metrics, including page load time, time to interact, and other key indicators.
PageSpeed Insights offers actionable recommendations for improving a website, such as optimising images, leveraging browser caching, and minifying CSS and JavaScript. It also provides mobile and desktop performance data, making it a versatile tool for analysing a website’s speed.
| Website | https://pagespeed.web.dev/ |
| Key Features | Free tool by Google, easy to use. Provides mobile and desktop performance data. |
| Metrics Provided | This report includes the performance score, time to interact, first contentful paint, total blocking time, page load time, and suggestions for improvement. |
| Customisation Options | Limited to standard performance analysis and suggestions. |
2. GTmetrix
GTmetrix is another powerful tool for comprehensive speed analysis. It combines data from Google Lighthouse and Web Vitals to provide insights into your website’s performance. GTmetrix offers detailed reports, including load time, total page size, and the number of requests made.
It also highlights potential issues that could slow down your site, such as large images, inefficient JavaScript, or server-side performance issues. Additionally, it provides suggestions for optimisation and the option to test your site from different geographic locations.
| Website | https://gtmetrix.com/ |
| Key Features | Combines Google Lighthouse and Web Vitals. Allows testing from various geographic locations. |
| Metrics Provided | Load time, page size, number of requests, performance scores, and recommendations for optimising speed. |
| Customisation Options | You can choose different test locations, browsers, and devices for testing. |
3. Pingdom
Pingdom is a reliable website monitoring service that tracks site speed and performance over time. It allows you to test your site from multiple locations worldwide and provides a comprehensive performance grade.
Pingdom also delivers insights into load time, the number of requests, and the overall page size, helping you identify areas for improvement. With its uptime monitoring capabilities, Pingdom ensures that you can monitor your website’s availability alongside performance.
| Website | https://www.pingdom.com/ |
| Key Features | Offers real-time performance monitoring and uptime tracking—tests from multiple locations globally. |
| Metrics Provided | Load time, page size, request count, performance grade, waterfall chart. |
| Customisation Options | Tests from multiple server locations. |
4. WebPageTest
WebPageTest is an advanced, open-source tool for testing website speed and performance. Unlike other tools, it allows for more detailed customisation when testing, such as simulating different browsers, connection speeds, and even device types.
The tool provides a wealth of information, including visual screenshots and a filmstrip view of how your site loads. It also provides a waterfall view of all elements on the page, helping you pinpoint specific resources that may be slowing down your website.
| Website | https://www.webpagetest.org/ |
| Key Features | An advanced, open-source tool with deep customisation options. Tests in different browsers, devices, and connection speeds. |
| Metrics Provided | Load time, page size, number of requests, detailed waterfall view, visual progress (filmstrip), time to first byte, start render time, and more. |
| Customisation Options | Extensive customisation (e.g., connection speed, browser, location). |
5. Lighthouse
Google’s Lighthouse is a robust, open-source tool for web developers to assess and optimise the performance of their websites. It evaluates not only page load speed but also accessibility, SEO, and best practices.
It’s integrated into Google Chrome’s developer tools, and its audits provide insights into specific areas that need optimisation, such as time to first byte, critical rendering path, and unused JavaScript.
| Website | https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview |
| Key Features | Integrated with Google Chrome DevTools. Focuses on performance, SEO, and accessibility. |
| Metrics Provided | Performance score, time to first byte, interactive time, accessibility score, SEO score, best practices. |
| Customisation Options | Can audit custom pages and test specific scenarios. |
Regularly testing your website’s speed and performance is essential for an optimal user experience. Whether you want to improve SEO or user satisfaction, leveraging these tools will guide you toward a more efficient and faster website.
Work With the Experts for Proven Website Speed Optimisation Strategies
When you optimise website speed, you ensure your site’s visitors have the optimal user experience. Google always favours sites with excellent UX, so you will likely rank higher in search results.
Another benefit of a fast website is that it increases the chances of customer conversion. Consumers have a short attention span, and a fast-loading site gives them reasons to stay on and browse for products.
You must employ the approaches mentioned in this list to boost your page speeds. Remember to test your site beforehand so that you can identify the bottlenecks. Similarly, you should test the website after implementing the strategies to confirm that they work.
For further information on improving your website speed, call MediaOne today. We can share our proven strategies for improving your site’s ranking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does SEO affect website speed?
Yes, SEO and website speed are closely connected. Search engines like Google use page speed as a ranking factor, meaning faster websites often rank higher. A quick-loading site also improves user experience, indirectly boosting SEO performance.
What is a good page speed for SEO?
A good page speed for SEO is under 2 seconds. Websites that load faster than this rank better on search engines reduce bounce rates, keep visitors engaged, and improve conversions.
Are longer pages better for SEO?
Longer pages can perform well for SEO if they provide high-quality, relevant content. However, they must be optimised for speed and usability, as slow-loading or poorly structured long pages may harm rankings and user experience.
Are empty pages bad for SEO?
Yes, empty pages are bad for SEO because they offer no value to users or search engines. They can also lead to higher bounce rates and signal poor website quality, negatively affecting your rankings.
Do landing pages help SEO?
Landing pages can help SEO if they are optimised with relevant content and keywords. They effectively target specific search queries and drive conversions, especially with fast load times and a user-friendly design.
