The loading speed of a website is one of the main characteristics that can directly affect the browsing experience that your visitors have. The time it takes a web page to load is decisive, in fact, it becomes a reason why visits begin to decrease.
Since the abandon rate increases when the wait time exceeds four seconds. Therefore, it is really important that you take care of optimizing your website efficiently. And here we give you the keys so that your web page achieves a record loading time.
10 keys to optimize the loading speed of a web page
Optimization in web development is an aspect that can never be neglected. This represents a better functioning, performance and adaptation of websites in the online space in which they are hosted.
For this, you can perform various tasks and apply different measures or techniques. On this occasion, we will talk about 10 key points that you should take into account to improve loading speed and cause a better browsing experience among your visitors.
1. Optimize images
Images can contribute to the loading delay of web pages. Because they can result as large files that, as a consequence, cause a much slower loading of the site.
So that this does not happen, there are certain actions that can be taken into consideration to optimize this type of file and, thus, optimize or improve the loading speed.
Among the main measures that can be carried out are the following:
- Adjust the resolution of the images. Adjusting the size that is required and using only what is necessary will allow them to be loaded in less time.
- Compress the images. In this case, you can use the format developed by Google, .webp, to compress your images, which will allow them to weigh less without losing quality.
- Don’t use too many images. Remember that sometimes less is more. A large number of unnecessary images will only cause your website to take time to load all of them.
2. Better distribute the load with a CDN
A CDN is a network that is responsible for the distribution of content worldwide. It is made up of a large number of computers or servers that are in charge of distributing the content in a more efficient way.
They manage to extend the bandwidth and, therefore, improve the loading speed of web pages. Among other benefits, a CDN also helps prevent DDoS attacks and contributes to a much more satisfying browsing experience.
3. Allow Gzip file compression
Another of the most efficient measures to improve the loading speed of a web page is, without a doubt, file compression. This action allows you to reduce the size of the files, giving rise to a much shorter loading time.
Currently, the Gzip compression format is widely used and is responsible for compressing each of the files on the website. It has a compression rate of 90% and works effectively on files that are very large.
To make use of this tool, it is necessary that you enable your server to offer the availability of compressed files to your visitors. You will have to carry out a simple configuration and your server will take care of offering this option automatically.
4. Enable system caching
The cache system is linked to the web hosting service, therefore, it is important that you take it into account when looking for a hosting to contract.
And if you have already contracted one, consult your service provider about the possibility of accessing this resource. This system will be in charge of loading a page for the first time and, in a certain way, storing a quantity of data that will allow the origination of a page with fixed content.
In this way, for the next visits that are made, your caching system will have the possibility of loading your website much faster. And it is that, at the server level, the cache system provides the ability to have a much faster option for processing access requests.
5. Configure the web page for lazy loading of elements
The deferred loading of elements is nothing more than the possibility of loading the elements of the web page as they need to be displayed.
The user does not need all the content of the web page to load immediately. For him, it is enough that, as he requests it, the elements can be loaded and displayed quickly.
This is how the navigator will be able to access the web page and it will be in charge of loading only what the visitor is seeing. The rest of the content can be loaded progressively.
6. Limit the unnecessary use of plugins
The use of plugins is quite enriching as long as they offer you more than they can limit you. And it is that, having an unnecessary amount of complementary programs installed on your site will only cause them to load much slower. What will affect the navigability within your page?
Therefore, it is important that your page only has the plugins that are necessary for its most optimal operation.
On the other hand, if you have add-on programs that you consider necessary but that you use sporadically, be sure to disable them when you don’t need them. In this way, you will be contributing to your site not being overloaded.
7. Use options for code minification
For this action, you can use different complementary programs that allow you to analyze the code of your web page and make the necessary corrections.
Code minification is a task that is based on discarding all the characters that are considered unnecessary from the code files.
In this way, code minification allows code optimization, load time reduction, space-saving and reduced bandwidth usage.
8. Optimize all possible resources and control the amount
To improve loading speed, optimization of resources is extremely important.
From the simplification of these, to the reduction of their size. Of course, this is not to say that your page must now be boring and zero dynamic in order to have a decent loading speed. Not at all.
It is possible to improve the performance of your page with a large number of tools that will make sure that your site does not lose its essence, much less its quality.
To more quickly identify those resources that can or should be optimized, you can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
9. Optimize the mobile version
The use of mobile devices to access the Internet is increasing. Therefore, it is important that you also take into account the loading speed that your page may have from these devices.
For this, the Google tool that we just mentioned (Google PageSpeed Insights) will be very helpful.
Since you will be able to know the loading speed of your page through different devices and what resources to optimize to improve it.
10. Use monitoring programs
Another quite important action is to maintain regular monitoring of the loading speed of your web page.
This will allow you to determine the aspects that require your attention, as well as strengthen the weak points and take advantage of the strong points.
There are a large number of programs with tools that can help you not only monitor your page. But, also, they can carry out profiling and offer you advice on what you need to change, optimize or improve.
Importance of improving the loading speed of a website
Making sure to improve the loading speed of a website is quite important because of the great benefits it brings. Among the main ones we can mention the following:
- Decreased dropout rate. If a website has a good loading speed, its visitors will be less likely to abandon it. This will reduce the bounce rate and the abandonment rate.
- Satisfactory browsing experience. Users will benefit from a rewarding experience in which their web browsing will be fast, intuitive and fluid.
- Increased conversions. Improving the loading speed of a website also influences the conversions that may occur. Users will be able to start using your website directly, becoming regular visitors
- Google favoring. A good loading speed is an aspect that Google urges. Therefore, improving the loading speed of your website will allow you to favor your positioning in search engines (SEO).
In conclusion, optimizing the loading speed of a website is a fundamental part of content marketing and any successful digital marketing strategy. By improving the loading speed of a web page, you can improve the user experience, increase your website’s visibility in search engines, and ultimately drive more traffic and conversions. Therefore, it is important to spend time and resources on load optimization to maximize the potential of any website.
You must always monitor the speed of your website to avoid loss of visitors and also an authority in Google, in our PageSpeed Insights course you will learn how to optimize and improve the loading speed of your website and in our Expert Certification in analytics and data, you will learn to get the most out of all the data you collect, so you can see which strategy is working and which ones you should improve to achieve your established objectives.
