Page speed is a measure of how fast the content on a page loads, and thus page speed can also be described as ‘page load time’. Below you’ll find out what page speed is in more detail, why it’s important, how to test your website’s page speed, and also some page speed tips you can implement to optimize your website.
What Is Page Speed And Why Is It Important?
Page speed (not to be confused with ‘site speed’) is a crucial aspect in making your website perform better, and even more important if your viewers are accessing your web page from a mobile phone.
If you want your website to drive traffic, orders, phone calls, or whatever your action goal may be, having a fast page speed is a must. Longer page load times will also increase your bounce rates and lower the average time a visitor spends on your page.
Also, Google factors in page speed when determining which websites rank higher in Google Search results. There are numerous practices that can be used to increase your Google Search ranking, such as using Meta Descriptions and Meta Keywords or improving your site structure, but your page speed plays a huge role too.
Page Speed Test
Before w dive into our page speed tips, you must first assess the situation. So, to test page load speed, you want to use a tool that will give your page a thorough page load time speed test. Testing your page load speed with our App will provide you with a quantifiable score, and also all the page speed information you will need in order to analyze and improve its performance, and more.
Page Speed Tips
Enable File Compression
First of our page speed tips is compress, compress, compress. Your website consists of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files, and to improve your page speed, start by compressing these files down to decrease their sizes. GZIP is a great way for compressing these files just ensure that you don’t use it on image files – more on that later.
Reduce Redirects
Limit the number of redirects, since each time a page redirects to another page, the additional HTTP request-response cycles will make your page load slower. For example, if your mobile redirect pattern looks similar to: ‘wiredelta.com > www.wiredelta.com > m.wiredelta.com > m.wiredelta.com/home’, reduce the number of redirects.
Improve Your Server Response Time
Slow server response times can significantly reduce your page speed. There are numerous factors that can affect this: amount of traffic, page resources, the software the server uses, and which server host provider you are using.
Look for performance bottlenecks as this will allow you to gauge where you can improve exactly.
Minify Your CSS, JavaScript And HTML Code
If you followed the first of our page speed tips you are already halfway there. But you should also consider optimizing your code by removing spaces, commas, comments, formatting, unnecessary characters, and unused code can all drastically improve your page load time. Streamline your website as much as possible.
Browser Caching
Browsers will cache a lot of information such as images, stylesheets, and JavaScript files so that the next time the user visits your website, the browser does not have to load the entire page. Leverage this. Set your browser cache for your website to expire after a longer time period so that when a user accesses your website again, it loads quicker.
Keep in mind though, this page speed optimization tactic only works if your website design is fairly static.
Enable Image Compression
As mentioned earlier with your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, you can reduce image file sizes to improve your page speed. There are different tools to do this, such as Adobe Photoshop, Kraken, and Squoosh.
Whichever tool you use, ensure you stick to PNG or JPEG file formats for your images.
Remove All Render-Blocking JavaScript
Web browsers have to parse your page’s HTML before it can render the page for users. If these browsers encounter a render-blocking JavaScript, it has to stop and execute it before the browser can continue, which increases your page speed time. So remove render-blocking JavaScript.
Content Distribution Networks (CDN)
And the final of our page speed tips list, use a CDN. CDN’s are a network of servers that are utilized to distribute the load of delivering content. It can help deliver your website faster by storing copies of it on multiple servers that are spread globally, so users across the world will have faster and more reliable access to your website.
