Website Speed

Posted by Elsa Cordero

Does The Speed of Your Website Really Matter?

Google and Websites, SEO, Website Speed

7 easy things you can do now to make your website faster

Why is website speed so important? Well, slow loading times can lead to a bad user experience, bad search engine rankings (or no ranking at all) and worse if all losing prospects/visitors.

For all those reasons, you should focus on making your website faster and the best part is that doing so is not hard at all.

Here are 7 easy things you can do right now to increase the speed of your website.

1. Install a caching plugin

Many of us run websites that require interaction with a database ie. WordPress, and every time someone visits the site, it hits your database to get content. Installing a caching plugin can reduce the number of times you hit your database by serving cached versions of pages from the file system or memory.

This means that if 10 people visit your website, the caching plugin will only hit your database once instead of 10 times.

2. Optimize your images

Large images can take a long time to load, so make sure you’re optimizing them for the web. You can do this by compressing them using a tool like Photoshop or ImageOptim, and by using the correct file format.

For images that you plan to use on the web, you should save them as JPEGs or PNGs.

3. Minimize HTTP requests

Every time someone visits your website, their browser makes a request for each individual file it needs to display the page. This includes the HTML document, images, video, scripts, stylesheets, and any other asset you have on your page.

The more requests there are, the longer it takes for your page to load. You can reduce the number of HTTP requests by combining multiple CSS or JavaScript files into one file, or by adding embeds instead of including an image in every post.

4. Gzip compression

Web browsers can understand compressed files much better than uncompressed ones, so it’s a good idea to compress your website’s files before sending them to the browser.

This can be done using a tool like Gzip, and it will reduce the size of your files by up to 70%.

5. Use a content delivery network

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers that are located around the world. When someone visits your website, their browser will request the files from the server that is closest to them. Many hosting services offer some sort of CDN, that’s why it’s so important to choose the right host for your site.

A CDN can speed up the loading time for your site by up to 50%.

6. Use a responsive design

Most people nowadays view websites on their phones and tablets, so it’s important to make sure your website looks good on all devices.

Using a responsive design will ensure that your website looks good no matter what device it’s being viewed on.

7. Enable caching

If you’re not using a caching plugin, you should enable caching in WordPress. This way, when you make a change to your site, it will be cached for a certain period of time. Every time someone visits your website, they’ll get the older version until the cache expires and is refreshed.

In conclusion, there are several things you can do to make your website faster. following the tips listed above will help you achieve a faster loading time for your site. There are many plugins for WordPress out there that will help you with this task even if you’re not the “techy” type!

Do you have any other tips to share? Let us know in the comments below! Want us to help? Click here so we can connect!

5 Reasons Why Your Website Needs To Be Faster
Posted by Elsa Cordero

5 Reasons Why Your Website Needs To Be Faster

Google and Websites, Website Speed

No one likes waiting for a website to load. In fact, research shows that 47 percent of people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. And if it doesn’t, they’re likely to leave. That’s why your website needs to be faster.

Here are 5 reasons why:

1. Websites that load faster get more views, shares, and customers.

This is the number one reason why your website needs to be faster.

It only takes 3 seconds for a user to decide whether or not they are going to stick around. This means that you have approximately three seconds to impress them enough so that they stay, otherwise they’re gone and you probably lost a prospect.

On the other side of it, there is 22 percent of users that will leave a website that takes more than 10 seconds to load. So play it safe and hit that 3-second sweet spot!

In order to keep your visitors happy, you need to make sure your website is running as smoothly as possible. This means having a fast loading time.

2. Websites with faster page speeds get higher conversions.

Ensure you are getting the most out of every click by making sure visitors don’t have to wait for your website to load. 53 percent of people will leave a website that takes longer than three seconds to load. This is a huge amount of lost customers. That’s why your website needs to be faster.

A slow website not only frustrates visitors but can also hurt your business. Research shows that a one-second delay in page load time can result in a 7% decrease in conversions.

There are many factors that can affect the speed of your websites, such as image size and the number of requests made to the server. Optimizing these elements can have a significant impact on your page speed.

3. Google uses page speed as a ranking factor for search engine results pages (SERPs) meaning faster sites rank higher and get more traffic from the world’s largest search engine.

In addition to higher rankings, faster websites enjoy lower bounce rates (people that leave your site after just viewing the first page) and longer average visit duration times. All of this amounts to more leads and conversions for your business.

Additionally, Google has indicated that page speed is a factor in its search rankings. So, if your website is slow, you’re likely to be ranked lower in search engine results pages.

Not only will it make your customers happier, but it will also help your SEO ranking.

4. A faster site improves the user experience for visitors potentially increasing the amount of time spent on your site. This ultimately leads to more page views.

Additionally, search engines have a preference for sites that load quickly and efficiently. Sites with slow loading speeds often struggle to gain good page ranks from various search engines such as Google or Bing.

5. Bounce rate decreases, along with the amount of people who leave your site immediately after viewing one page or fewer increases.

Generally speaking, the higher the bounce rates are on your site, the lower an SEO score you will end up having. This can be seen as a negative thing for search engine crawlers, thus, less of a chance you will be ranked high in results.

This is because a website that loads faster will encourage visitors to stay longer and explore more of your content, products, or services.

Want to know how you can make your website faster? Check out our blog post on how to speed up your website.

In conclusion, there are many reasons why your website needs to be faster. If you would like more information on any of the 5 ways a faster site helps you with your audience, business, or search rankings contact us today!

What The Heck Is A Cache
Posted by Elsa Cordero

What The Heck Is A Cache? And why is it important for a fast website?

Google and Websites, Website Speed

There are many different types of caches and you don’t need to understand all of them to take advantage of its power. However, if you want to get the most out of caching, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of how it works.

Every time you visit a webpage or refresh it, your browser requests the content from the webserver. If the content is not in the cache, your browser has to send a request to the server, wait for a response, and then display the content. This process can take anywhere from a few milliseconds to several seconds, depending on the size of the page and the speed of your internet connection. However, caching can speed up the loading of web pages by up to 50%.

Caching And Mobile Devices 

Caching is especially important for mobile devices because they have limited memory and bandwidth. When a mobile website loads slowly, users are more likely to abandon the page. Mobile devices account for about 56% of web traffic today. Of that 56%, 20% use iOS phones, 16% use Android phones, and 38% use other mobile devices. This means that a larger percentage of mobile users are using iPhones or Android phones, which have better browsers and optimized caches.

Caching And More Customer Conversions

According to a 2017 survey by Zendesk, two-thirds of customers abandon a purchase process because of a frustrating user experience. If you’re trying to sell something online, whether it be an app, service, or physical goods, poor web performance is the last thing you want to inflict on your customers.

Fast websites aren’t just important for e-commerce, they’re also an important part of search engine optimization (SEO). Browsers like to show websites that load quickly in their search results because users prefer fast sites and Google ranks them higher. This means more visitors and more conversions for you!

This is where caching comes in! By taking a snapshot of your content and storing it on a CDN (content delivery network), the cached version appears when users visit your site or refresh it. That way, if they come back and refresh their browser, the cached version will load much more quickly than if they’ve never seen it before.

This is particularly beneficial for WordPress users because you can take advantage of an incredibly popular caching plugin like W3 Total Cache. W3 Total Cache speeds up WordPress by caching both the static files and the dynamic content. There are also other caching plugins and your hosting service might be offering this already!

Caching Plugins also minifies and compresses your HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files to reduce the size of those files. This can result in a 2x-10x performance improvement for your website!

In Conclusion caching is an incredibly important tool for optimizing your website. By understanding how it works, you can take advantage of its benefits and improve the performance of your website for your users.

Thanks for reading!