Users can have a small attention span, and in order to keep their attention, your website should load as quickly as possible. Around eight seconds is the absolute limit a user will spend waiting on your website to load, but you should aim for a response time that only lasts about two seconds. The less time it takes to wait, the more time the user has to explore your page. If your page load speed is too slow, a potential customer may close the browser and never come back.
It’s a good thing there are several easy ways to improve your website speed, and by doing so, you’ll have more views and traffic overall.
1. Prioritize and Condense Multimedia Files
A website doesn’t need a variety of media to sell its point to its audience. By placing videos on every available surface and an image to drive its point even further, with perhaps a few audio clips, your website might take quite a while to load everything properly.
You don’t need a multitude of multimedia in order to make your audience understand your vision on a single page. By prioritizing what is needed, along with some text to explain its content, you can allow your viewers a chance to see your site in a well-groomed fashion along with a faster page load speed.
Also, the types of images, videos, music, and special effects you choose to use can all slow down your website speed. It’s important to remember to keep your files on a smaller scale so that they don’t take up a lot of space and also take forever to appear.
Keep in mind the different types of files for your graphics and/or photographs and to make sure they are compressed for your site. PNGs are typically better suited for graphic design and illustration, whereas JPEGs are more suited to a variety of colors. Using the wrong file type might be the culprit behind slower website speed, but it is an easy fix.
2. Reduce Redirects
Waiting for a page to redirect over and over again is also a big reason for slower site speed. By cutting out one or two of the redirects, your viewers can get to your site quicker than before. For example, if the process goes something like “www.myoldsite.com → myoldsite.com → mynewsite.com → https://mynewsite.com,” both of those middle links can be taken out to easily go from “www.myoldsite.com → https://mynewsite.com.”
3. Remove Unnecessary Plugins
Plugins are meant to improve a specific functionality on your website. They allow you to add extra information, change visual elements, and more. However, plugins can slow down your pages.
The key is to keep the high-quality plugins your website really needs and remove the unnecessary ones.
4. Allow Browser Caching
This is perhaps one of the most common hacks that can improve site loading speed. When a potential client visits your website for the first time, the main components of your page are stored temporarily on a hard drive. This allows them to access your website faster and easier on their next visit without sending another HTTP request.
You can use services like WordPress-powered W3 Total Cache to allow browser caching for your web page.
5. Upgrade Your Web Hosting Package
The quality of your web hosting package greatly affects your website speed. While using a shared hosting platform can save you money, investing in a high-performing VPS or dedicated hosting should be one of your priorities. These packages use faster technology stacks and offer more options to fine tune your server.
A website can be easy to manage and have a good number of viewers if you plan what’s on each page accordingly and accurately. The above-mentioned tips are easy fixes to any slow page loading speed.
At Advanced Digital Media Services, our team specializes in SEO strategies that can guarantee a boost in your website speed and rankings. We also offer web hosting. Let us handle all the hard work for you so you can focus on what you’re best at!
