Page load time is a key factor while building a successful website. It takes a second to impress an online visitor with your page. Google considers page loading time as a ranking factor and hence improving it must be a priority.
Most of the readers will abandon your site just because it doesn't load quickly. It doesn't mean your site is bad, but just because it is slow, a percentage of an online pool will reject your page and look for other links.
This will unnecessarily increase your bounce rate.
Try Page Speed Insights to analyze your page and Google Analytics.
Most of the readers will abandon your site just because it doesn't load quickly. It doesn't mean your site is bad, but just because it is slow, a percentage of an online pool will reject your page and look for other links.
This will unnecessarily increase your bounce rate.
Try Page Speed Insights to analyze your page and Google Analytics.
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| image source: pixabay.com (Peggy Marco) |
In the process of trying new widgets and plugins, we often forget to remove old ones and they inherently contribute to slow the speed.
People often try too many plugins on their blogs and sites and forget the importance of loading speed.
People often try too many plugins on their blogs and sites and forget the importance of loading speed.
Plugins such as Shareaholic for social sharing, Jetpack or even Yoast Wordpress plugin for social sharing will solve much of a purpose instead of trying multiple widgets.
2. Look for a better Hosting Plan
If you host your site on one of the best hosting servers such as Dreamhost, you will certainly boost your site ranking.
Top hosting servers have much more stability and support than normal ones. Other good hosting plan includes Bluehost, Hostgator, etc. Nowadays there are too many options.
Top hosting servers have much more stability and support than normal ones. Other good hosting plan includes Bluehost, Hostgator, etc. Nowadays there are too many options.
3. Get an attractive Theme
Surely you need a better theme which supports your content niche. There are plenty of site designs are already available in online stores.
You may like to see "Get Premium WordPress Themes - Grab it quickly!"
If you have a long-term goal of your site building, you certainly can not stay on free hostings such as Blogspot and risk your growth.
Free themes just because they are free, have a lot of malicious and incomplete codes or even incomplete or unused scripts inbuilt and can cause a drastic reduction in site loading speed, a threat of hacking, etc.
Free themes just because they are free, have a lot of malicious and incomplete codes or even incomplete or unused scripts inbuilt and can cause a drastic reduction in site loading speed, a threat of hacking, etc.
4. Using compressed Images (Lossless compression)
Although jpg and png are the most preferred way to use images on site pages, sometimes they cause slow loading.
An excellent WordPress plugin Lazy load which will stop your page load all the images until the user scrolls the page down. Isn't is smart. It is very useful when you have long posts and many images on the same page.
There are plugins available to reduce image sizes. Smush it plugin (by Yahoo) is a great example. For your png files, you can use TinyPNG which is best compress tool available without losing any quality.
Other excellent resources include JPEG Optimizer, JPEG Reducer, PunyPNG, Compress PNG, Compress Image.
Other excellent resources include JPEG Optimizer, JPEG Reducer, PunyPNG, Compress PNG, Compress Image.
5. Using Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
These are the networks which help you spread your relevant content across the entire web community. For example, if you have a news site, registered with some best CDN network around you, your relevant content will be sponsored by other top-ranking sites.
This way every potential site owner get benefited without taking many further efforts on reaching potential visitors.
This way every potential site owner get benefited without taking many further efforts on reaching potential visitors.
Best examples of CDN include Amazon Cloudfront and MaxCDN. Both are worth trying.
6. Minimize your Codes
Get the best tools to analyze which elements of your sites are loading slower. Pingdom is one of the good resources for this purpose. Most of the time fancy social widgets, javascript, CDATA sections, ad codes take more time in loading.
You can compress all those long CSS and HTML elements using plugins and online tools. For WordPress users, Minifier and Autoptimize are the best plugins for this purpose.
7. Eliminate render-blocking Java Scripts/CSS above-the-fold
If you simply put all the unnecessary JavaScripts and widgets to load at last of your page content, surely your visitor will focus on content first and then the site will slowly fill all the remaining corners after main content has been displayed. Putting JavaScript in the footer area is a solution.
8. Avoid Using too many Ads
Monetizing faster maybe you need but surely not a solution. With more number of ads on your page will certainly decrease its loading speed. Try using banners using image compression.
Google Adsense Ads also offer you select an Asynchronous type of code to ensure they do not hamper your page loading.
Google Adsense Ads also offer you select an Asynchronous type of code to ensure they do not hamper your page loading.
9. Avoid Server Clutter
You may have tried many things with your site a long ago and server may have traces behind. You can take a step to remove all those clogs and clutter from your server and hence expect a certain boost in page speed.
Old and updated sites often have backups clogged on the servers, and hence need serious attention.
Old and updated sites often have backups clogged on the servers, and hence need serious attention.
10. Leverage Browser Caching
Server caching is a good technique to ensure the elements which are repeatedly used are saved on the remote servers. This will certainly speed up the process for repeat users.
You must have already observed that while surfing, the pages which you have visited last day, loads quickly today, that's because of caching.
You must have already observed that while surfing, the pages which you have visited last day, loads quickly today, that's because of caching.
Browser often saves a copy of images, stylesheets, and javascript on their local discs.
You can set HTTP headers to set expiry dates to ensure they are removed on a later time. You can edit your hosting's CPanel to add with below codes in
You can set HTTP headers to set expiry dates to ensure they are removed on a later time. You can edit your hosting's CPanel to add with below codes in
.htaccess file.
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/png “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresByType text/css “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/pdf “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access plus 1 year”
ExpiresDefault “access plus 2 days”
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
11. Reduce server response time
Long web server response is not good at all for page loading speed. The server must respond quickly to the users query as soon as they hit links. It must happen within 200ms after the request is sent. For this a good web hosting server is necessary.
All top tier web hosting such as Dream host, Bluehost are enough capable of this with their dedicated servers.
All top tier web hosting such as Dream host, Bluehost are enough capable of this with their dedicated servers.
12. Enable Gzip compression
Gzip compression reduces the size of files sent from your server to a local browser. It can be as good as up to 70% down.
"Since Gzip compresses common strings of a page design, this can reduce the size of pages and stylesheets by up to 70%."
Copy below code in your .htaccess file by going to Cpanel in your web hosting settings.
# compress text, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and XML
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
# remove browser bugs
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
Header append Vary User-Agent
WordPress users can use Wp Total Cache Plugin to enable automatic compression of the codes from their templates.
So, what you wanna say. Let us know in comments below? Need help, email us.
So, what you wanna say. Let us know in comments below? Need help, email us.
