Every site or a blog owner knows how important website loading time is. Even the search engine algorithm considers the load time of a website. It says that fast loading site, gets higher ranking. Secondly the visitors like a website which runs or loads fast. It gives them a better surfing experience. Users leave a website in seconds which takes long to load, which lead to higher bounce rate.
How to Test Your Website’s Speed
Before proceeding to tips, first let’s check that whether your website needs them or not. Means know how to test your websites speed. There are many online tools or sites available to measures yours site loading time. But here I am going to share two of the best ones.
Whichloadsfaster: In this tool we need to enter URL of the two website which we need to compare in load time. It compares the loading speed of both the websites. So use this tool to compare your sites loading time with your competitor’s site.
GTmetrix: This tool analyzes your website’s loading time and performance with respect to Google page speed and Yahoo Yslow. Also provide you some recommendations to improve it.
So what you should do to Speed Up Your Website Load Time
Use Cloudfare: CDN (Content delivery network) is a service which helps your website to have fast loading speed, Cloudfare is that. It is a collection of servers present at the around the globe data centers, which works together. Your website data is stored on all the servers and whenever make a search for your site, a request is sent and the nearest data center and provide the content to the visitors in much lesser time with high speed. Cloudfare offers both paid and free services.
Image Format: One of the major reasons of website having slow load time is use of high resolution images, graphics on it. Which type of images is being used like PNG, JPEG, GIF determines the load time. So use them correctly, if want to upload images then do it in JPEG format, but if using one single image the prefer PNG for it. Use GIF for providing small animations and Logos.
Optimize Images: Not only correct format but the optimization of images is also important factor in website load time. Photo editing tools like Photoshop has many advanced features make the image usable to use on web like, resizing it, or reducing its resolution.
Less Use of Plug-ins and Widgets
Plug-ins and widgets make website more cool and interactive, but over doing of it can result in slow load time of the website. Try to keep the number to minimum, consistently keep on checking the performance of the website due to theses plug-ins. Monthly clean up of less usable ones is a must.
Good Website Hosting Service
First research about the hosting providers available in the market. Know about the service, packages they are providing and then choose the one with good reputation. If possible always go for dedicated server for your website, instead of shared hosting plans in which one use to experience slow load speed.
So use these simple tips and increase your sites load time.
Guest Post by Jenny Simpson who writes for Marina Del Rey Toyota. She is a freelance blogger and likes to write about topics like social media, latest technology trends and other general stuff.