Load Speed
Page Loading Times
Arguably the most important factor that many small businesses overlook.
Yes Internet speeds are on the rise and if you live in a city then you probably take fibre optic broadband for granted.
But what about if you live in a village where speeds are limited – either through landline or the mobile networks?
The big companies invest heavily into page load speeds.
Here’s a few points to speed up how your website:
1. GZip Compression
Ask your hosting company if they run GZIP compression and deflation.
Don’t worry about the terminology, just know that it can reduce your load times by 70% without degrading on image quality.
Visit this site to check if your website uses GZIP compression: https://checkgzipcompression.com
2. Compress Your Images Manually
If you’re using WordPress, there’s plugins like EWWW Optimizer that will do this for you.
If you’re on another platform and not sure about what software can do this for you, use the ‘Save for web’ option in Photoshop to compress your images before you upload them to your website.
3. Cache Your Website
WP Super Cache is a great plugin that runs on WordPress.
Speak to your hosting company if you’re using another platform.
Caching your website means that your visitors’ browser doesn’t have to dynamically generate the pages every time a visitor comes back.
4. Use External Servers
Never load video directly onto your website! Always use a hosting platform like YouTube, Vimeo or Daily Motion.
The same goes for heavy images.
If your site is rich in media (e.g. if you’re using a Photographer) then you’ll want to use a hosting platform like Photobucket.
Got pdf downloads? Use Amazon S3 to host them.
5. Redirects
Only use them when necessary.
The more redirects a browser has to go through, the longer it’ll take to load the end page for the user.