Loading speed is how fast your website loads when a user
search for it. Customers want their searches to load almost instantly and are
not afraid to shop around online if your user experience is not quite up to
scratch.
You might think to yourself - why is this important? How can
this be helped? Why does it matter?
Well loading speed actually plays a part in Search Engine
Optimisation (SEO) and how Google views and ranks your website. Recent studies
show that Google considers loading speed as an important ranking factor when
considering where to index your businesses website.
Recent Google algorithms focus pre-dominantly on user
experience, they consider loading speed an important thing for search users.
Pages with a slower loading speed will often have much higher bounce rates plus
lower average page view time and lower conversions.
Test your businesses website loading speed using Page
Insights on Google. If your loading speed needs improving work alongside a
quality reputable web design designer. They will be able to help improve your
sites speed with some of the below suggestions:
- Enabling compression: Use a programme (Gzip) to
compress the size of your CSS, HTML & Javascript files on-site. For images
compress the sizes using Photoshop or other design software.
- Reduce page re-directs: Every time a page directs to
another page, the wait to find a search and page result increases. Ensure
minimal re-directs as these slow down your loading time.
- Leverage browser caching: Browsers store information
every time a user visits your website. Set your ‘expires’ header for a year,
this reduces the loading speed over time as it loads saved information and
doesn’t have to load the entire page.
- Improve server response time: Server response time is
affected by the number of traffic your site generates, the amount of
information it has to load plus the software and hosting package you use.
Ensure the server you use has adequate space, the most up-to date software and
deals with issues like slow queries and performance.
- Optimize images: A simple but effective tip for
improving your businesses website. Ensure images are a relatively small file
size and correct format for loading up in an adequate time.
