How to Dramatically Improve Your Website Speed in 9 Easy Steps

Did you know that your website's performance can be affected by five seconds?

Five seconds.

Every second that your website takes to load decreases your conversion rate by 4.422%. This is because users only spend five seconds on your site. Further research has shown that each second of delay in loading your website results in 11% less pageviews and 16% less customer satisfaction.

Your ROI will suffer, no matter how well-crafted your content marketing strategy is. If your website loads slowly while your customers demand lightning speed, it will be slowing down your business.

It is easy to improve website speed. You don't need to have any previous experience in web development to make your website faster. We'll show you 7 of these steps in this article.

Here are some quick tips:

• Today, more than three quarters of all web pages load in less that 5 seconds.

• Measuring your website's performance is the first step in improving website speed.

• Although visual content is essential for websites, slow download times can be caused by poorly optimized images.

• For returning users, browser caching reduces loading times by an additional 2 seconds

• A minimalist approach to website design can improve your website's speed.

What makes page speed so important

Website speed is improving and users expect more. According to research, 78% of website pages load in 5 seconds or less. These first five seconds are critical. If your website takes longer than that range (0-4 seconds), you will likely be behind your competitors.

img alt=”Ideal Page Loading Time is 0-4 Seconds” class=”aligncenter” height=”437″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Ideal-Loading-Time.jpg” width=”622″/>

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User experience and brand perception are also affected by website speed. When your website takes longer for it to load, users' attention is diverted from the original goal and instead focus on the fact that they are waiting. They won't be patient long. As conversion rates decrease with each additional second of loading, bounce rate increases when people leave your website.

img alt=”Bounce Rates Increase with Longer Website Loading Times” class=”aligncenter” height=”698″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Bounce-Rates.png” width=”1000″/>

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Speeding up your website will make it easier for your visitors to find the information they are looking for quickly. This will improve their experience and enhance their perception of your brand.

Let's now look at 9 steps that will help you get there.

9 simple steps to speed up your website

Your website's speed

First, understand your current website speed. These free tools will help you measure the speed of your website.

• GTmetrix
• Google Page Speed Insights
• Dareboost

These tools will not only show you how long your site takes to load but also offer specific suggestions for improving website speed, security, and SEO. These tools can be used to monitor your progress and address any issues quickly, even if you've followed the steps.

Optimize images

For enhancing written content, you need high-quality images that are high-resolution and of high quality. Visual content is a way to communicate the message you want to convey in every blog post, landingpage, and static page of your website. Your content will also be more interesting for your users.

If you don't be careful, the same visuals can weigh down your website like a ton bricks, significantly slowing it down.

The problem is that if you upload an image, then scale it down using your website's CSS, your browser will still load the larger version, which can slow down your loading time. So, don't upload huge images. Reduce them first. The file size doesn't have to be smaller just because the image height and width parameters are set at 200 pixels in your content management system. Uploading a 1000-pixel-squared image will increase your bandwidth.

Here's how to solve it:

• Before you upload, crop and resize the image using an image editing program.

• Next, compress your images. TinyPNG, a free image compression tool, will reduce file size without affecting image quality.

• Upload your image

• This can be done with all images on your website. Before you start testing your site speed. Next, resize, compress, and re-upload. Check again to see how fast your website loads.

Allow compression

You may have already set up file compression on your site. It's worth checking if your site is set up for file compression. This setting can reduce the file size by as much as 50%.

To check if your site has been enabled, you can use the free GZIP compression tool.

Follow these steps based on the configuration of your webserver to set it all up. It is usually as easy as adding code to the file manager of your website.

Minify your code

As we discuss how to speed up websites, you've likely noticed the general trend: load smaller and faster. This brings us to minifying. If you look at the page speed of your website, you will likely see a suggestion to “minify JavaScript CSS and/or HTML.”

Minifying is another way to reduce file size. It removes unnecessary files without affecting the functionality or appearance of your website. You're basically cleaning up your website's code by removing unnecessary lines breaks and characters as well as programmer comments.

These extra characters and spaces were initially added to make your code easier for programmers. They won't affect your site but will reduce the file size.

Depending on how much space was taken up when the site was built, minifying could result in a significant file size reduction and page speed improvement.

There are many ways to minify. A plugin like BetterWordPressMinify, AssetsMinify, WPSuperMinify, or WPMinify Options is a great way to minify WordPress.

Google offers a guide to minifying, which includes separate resources for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Redirects should be reduced

Your website's loading speed can be negatively affected by excessive redirects. Your website visitors will experience longer wait times while waiting for the HTTP request response cycle to complete every time it redirects to another webpage.

Some redirects are necessary. However, it is possible to improve your website's speed by removing those you don’t use. You have a few tools to assist you, such as this Redirect Mapper and Screaming Frog’s website crawler.

You can identify duplicate redirects, and remove those that don't serve a purpose to speed up your website.

Choose a performance-optimized hosting provider

Your website's speed can be affected by your web host. Your web host acts as a middleman between your website pages, files, and end users.

img alt=”Map showing web host's ability to improve website speed.” class=”aligncenter” height=”400″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Website-Host-How-it-Works.jpg” width=”750″/>

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If you choose to settle for poor hosting, or worse, it can lead to serious performance problems that could have severe consequences. It's worth investing in reliable, high quality hosting that optimizes your website performance.

Use a content delivery network

Content delivery networks (CDNs), are networks of servers that allow faster and more reliable access for your website. They store copies of your website at multiple data centers around world. CDNs can be used in conjunction with your web hosting platform, but not as an alternative. CDNs improve website speed by reducing distance between your browser and the website's host server. There are many CDN providers that you can choose from. Here's how to identify the best one.

You can use browser and webpage caching

Caching is used by browsers to save having to reload pages each time a visitor returns to your site. These cache objects such as stylesheets and images, JavaScript files, etc. While we know that website speed is important for first-time visitors, caching can help reduce the loading time for returning users by a few seconds. Don't miss out on this opportunity!

Embrace minimalism

The final step is to make your website more minimalistic. Your website's visual content, widgets, plugins, and website redirects should all be carefully considered. You should eliminate those that do not serve a clear purpose. In design, less is more. If your website isn't driving potential customers to a specific goal, don't overload it with unnecessary objects.

More to you

You have to speed up your website and provide the best user experience possible. You can accomplish this in minutes by following the steps above. Marketing Insider Group is a great resource for quality content that will add value to your customers and drive more organic traffic to your website.

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