7 Solutions for Optimizing Slow Loading Websites
Slow-loading websites aren’t just frustrating for visitors, the speed of the site also affects the ranking position. Here’s how to speed your site up.
Think about the last time you were waiting for a slow website to load. How long did you wait before you bounced out of there to find another website to fulfil your needs?
Well, most people won’t even wait 6 seconds for a website to load, before they leave. Modern consumers expect a website to load almost immediately.
How long does your business website take to load? Slow-loading websites can affect both your sales and your Google ranking, so it’s imperative to improve them right away. It’s not that hard to speed up your site; it just requires a few back-end tweaks.
Keep reading to find out what these website management tips are.
1. Use a Website Speed Test to Monitor Your Website
You might assume (wrongly) that your website loads fast, but that could be far from the truth. You won’t know until you test your website’s speed by using one of the online website speed tests. There are many of them out there and in less than a minute, you will know for certain what your website loading speed is.
This is important to do regularly so you are keeping on top of your website load speeds, and will know instantly when something changes. You don’t want to wait until you miss out on sales or revenue before you realize that your website is having issues loading fast. Be more proactive in this regard.
2. Compress Your Images
This is another way to ensure that your website loading speeds aren’t terribly slow. You might have chosen random stock images from the internet to add to your website without thinking twice about it. But each time a user tries to load your website, it’s the image size that can truly slow loading.
It’s easy enough to compress and resize the images to optimize them, before uploading them to your website. Make it a habit to do so going onward, and use a tool to optimize all previous images as well.
3. Avoid Redirects if Possible
You have probably experienced this yourself while waiting for a website to load. The website designer set it up so that the webpage redirects to entirely another page, but you as a user are sitting there wondering why it’s taking so long for the website to load.
Sometimes, redirects are inevitable. You might be updating that old webpage and you need time for that to happen, so you redirect visitors to another page.
But if you can avoid them, do so. They will increase your website loading speed by a few seconds, and that can be annoying to visitors.
4. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Never heard of a CDN before? Don’t worry, it isn’t a common term in laypeople’s repertoire.
But if you are working towards improving your website’s loading speed, you are soon going to become quite aware of what CDN is and how it can help you.
Essentially, CDN improves your website’s loading speed by caching the website’s content in multiple locations around the world. This way, your website will load at similar speeds no matter if the user is based in Singapore or Toronto, since requests for content will go not thousands of miles from them but to a server close to their location.
5. Minify Javascript and CSS Files
Do not fear. You don’t need to become a coding expert to optimize your website. Of course, if all these terms are scaring you or making you feel cornered, then hiring a website management service is best.
When it comes to minifying Javascript and CSS files, as with optimizing images, you can use a tool to do this as well. This way, these files will load only in the browser and take up less bandwidth since the computer doesn’t actually need them to carry out your website’s code.
6. Use Browser HTTP Caching
The reason why you can’t just make a judgement on your website loading speed on your own is that your website is already cached on your computer since you probably visit it several times a day.
Cacheing is when browsers save static copies of recently visited web pages so that it’s faster to load these web pages again. This is great for any returning visitors to your website since they won’t have to deal with the website loading every time. The cache will open up the website faster than ever, and they can get their task done easier.
7. Reduce the Number of HTTP Requests
Every time your website loads, it makes several HTTP requests from the server for the various assets on the page, like images, scripts, CSS files, and more. Each time the HTTP request has to go all the way to the server and then back again to execute the command.
This takes time and thus, can increase your website loading speeds. To avoid this, you can reduce the number of HTTP requests to a minimum.
Setting this up requires some coding in the background and going through a recent speed test to see which images or pages are loading slowly, but a good website management service can easily do this for you.
You Aren’t Stuck With Slow-Loading Websites
If you have done a speed test recently and noticed that your website is quite slow to load, then don’t assume that you are stuck with that scenario. With the tips shared above you can improve the speed of your slow-loading websites greatly.
Not up for doing the work yourself? Consider hiring JWHost for our website care services. We bring the expertise necessary to ensure all aspects of your website care are accounted for.
