Time runs out in the blink of an eye. If reports are to be believed, more than 80% of the population feel impatient to wait 2 seconds for a website to load. There are various speed checkers available that help in increasing the speed of a website. The speed checkers have the server react as fast as possible.
Website loading speed is important, and even the lag of a fraction of a second makes a difference. Website speed delivers a great user experience irrespective of the niche of the website. A website is more likely to get customers if it is a fast one.
How does the site speed matter?
The buying behavior of a person largely depends on the speed of a website. Websites taking forever to load do not make you feel well, do they? You start experiencing emotions of anger and frustration with the slightest delay. You are less likely to visit that website anytime in the future.
Website speed plays a determining factor in bringing your traffic. People researching your products and services have as low as no patience to sit around and wait for the website to load. Everything has to be immediate. If it's not immediately available, it's not worth the shot. Today's people do not bring patience, as was seen back in 2010.
Search Engine Optimization and Website Speed
Since 2010, Google optimized itself to rank websites as per the load speed. Google’s algorithm dates back to site speed as a ranking factor among the top websites. If you want your website to show up in the search results, you must start prioritizing its speed.
A web request responded within the fastest possible time to determine the site speed. It is important to speed up your website that can cater as a solution to large human problems.
If your website is fast, it is more likely to create happy users. Slow site speed affects Google rankings, and visitors tend to ignore it just by looking at the name of your website. User experience can wear off if Google takes your site to be a slow one. This is one of the reasons why anything you search for on Google today takes you to the fastest websites that rank per Google's algorithm.
What do you think slows your website?
Features that are an often unseen act to weigh down a website.
These features may not be used by your potential customers at all; however, website design may largely depend on it. Out of the number of factors that affect your website speed, the most common one is the theme of the website you put up. You may choose a paid theme or a free option depending upon the nature of your website.
However, a custom-designed website template that loads up with additional features may not always land together with the success of your website.
Extra features take time to load, and as such, a theme may be the one factor that triggers your speed to the bottom. This way, potential customers are forced to wait, and your website loses traffic. It is important to ensure the absolute essentials of a website are catered to and built.
Right from the beginning, features and functionalities must be removed to ensure the website loads correctly at its speed. Ensure sliders, image sizing, hosting, and content delivery networks are properly built and set from day 1.
Even if you choose to set up the other things later, it does not mean that you have to strip down the website and achieve no functionality at all. However, make sure these three things are put up first and then the rest.
Page Speed Metrics
Overcome the factors slowing your website speed. It is important to understand how a website speed is measured. Factors affecting your website speed include round trip time, page size, time to the first byte, and load time. The metrics have been explained in brief below:
By a round trip on a website, the time taken to complete the request processed by the browser till it reaches the server, and finally, completes the request in the form of a response is measured. The round trip time completes the request for information and can largely act as a factor weighing down your website to the bottom.
A single page comprises of multiple resources. The total size of resources present in one single page determines a page size. Resources include files, images, scripts, coding, and other elements that act behind the screen to make a complete web page.
Time is taken by a website to completely display content in a browser window. For a page to complete load time, all HTTP requests and scripts have to be completed and fulfilled.
The responsiveness of a webserver is measured by this parameter. A user making an HTTP request to the first byte is first received by the user’s browser.
Tips to Increase Page Speed
You already know the necessity of enhancing your website speed. Here are a few indicators that may help to increase page speed:
• Have fewer possible redirects
• Improve the response time of the server
• Make sure your site is compression enabled
• Optimize images and other audiovisual files
• Try to leverage browser caching
You can try evaluating your page speed with Google’s Page speed insights. You can get automated reports based on your site’s data. For the best results, try optimizing the coding. Remove extra spaces, unnecessary characters.
Endnotes
Have a look at the page speed rules from Google. It will help you learn other parameters working on page ranks based upon page speed. While you learn on the above factors, make sure to have a constant estimation of your impact as you go on making changes.
It's best to learn page built first and then ensure speeding. Make your site as fast as possible for users and experience recurring customers.