Every second extra that your site takes to load leads to:
- 11% loss in page views
- 7% fewer conversion
- 87% shopping cart abandonment
- 43% of shoppers going directly to competitors
Slow site impacts greatly your ability to entice customers and generate.
What Is a Good Loading Time?
If your site loads in 3 seconds or less, that’s acceptable. Anything beyond 3 seconds causes the bounce rate to climb up sharply.
The bounce rate probability increases to 32% when load times increase from 1 second to 3 seconds. However, this number for pages with load times of 5 seconds is as high as 90%.
Another study reveals 75% of users will not revisit a page that takes over 4 seconds to load.
So the writing on the wall is loud and clear.
If your page load times exceed 3 seconds, you must make improving web performance your priority number one.
But before you work on speed, there’s one more thing to do…
Find out your site’s current average load time.
WebPage Test
WebPage Test is just as detailed as GTMetrix but offers more options (40+ server locations and 25+ browser types, including mobile).
Using it is a cinch. Paste your site’s URL, select the server location and browser, and hit the Start Test button.
This free, open-sourced tool captures a number of useful metrics and catalogs and displays them in different tables and charts to help you spot performance delays and increase website speed.
Use a Good Host
All hosts are not made equal. Some are significantly better than others. That’s why we test them so carefully.
Selecting the right host is paramount. Without a decent host, you will fail to get many benefits from the tips shared in this post.
Server response time can vary a great deal from one host to another.
In fact, one report states that while good hosts have a loading speed of 0.7 – 0.8 seconds, slow hosts can double that.
A slow server response time can prevent your site from entering the coveted under three-seconds club, regardless of how many other website optimization tips you implement.
If super-fast page loading speed is your top-most priority, you should consider Hostinger. After months of testing, it is ranked among the best here on Hosting Tribunal, as it provides stellar performance on all important parameters, including loading speed, loading speed under stress, and uptime. Additionally, the support team is knowledgeable and useful and can help with speed optimization quite a lot.
Of course, when choosing a host, it is always advisable to check more reviews to get a clearer idea of whether the hosting provider suits you or not.
Defer JavaScript Files
When you defer a file, the browser loads it after other page elements. Deferring large files like JS files makes a lot of sense because they can delay the loading of other content.
This step doesn’t actually speed up JavaScript load time. However, it does ensure that the browser gives more priority to the rest of your content.
How to Enable Asynchronous Loading and Defer Javascript Files?
If you want to speed up JavaScript loading, use a WordPress plugin like WP Rocket or some other.
If you’re using WP Rocket, click the Static Files tab and select these three options in the Render-blocking CSS/JS section:
- Load CSS Files synchronously
- Load JS files deferred
- Safe mode (recommended)
The best way to defer Java in a custom-coded site is to load javascript just before the </body> tag of the HTML document. Another method is to add the defer attribute to the script.
For asynchronous loading, add async to your scripts. This will ensure the browser loads the HTML that comes after the async script along with it.
Is Speed Optimization Worth It?
If you’re not getting as much traffic as you expect or if your visitors are not spending enough time on your site, it’s time you should ask yourself one question that matters—how to improve website loading speed?
Speed affects all things that are important for your business, from page traffic to bounce rate, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty, conversions, and repeat purchase rate.
In short, if you ignore website performance, your bottom line will suffer.
Big time.
Multiple factors affect page speed, but you don’t have to fix all of them at once.
Run speed tests using free benchmark tools to identify the deepest of performance loopholes hampering the speed of your site.
Start with them to get maximum benefit in the minimum time. Many of the hacks about how to speed up a website discussed above are in fact very easy to implement, even for custom-coded sites.
So don’t let speed keep you away from realizing your dream of becoming a successful online entrepreneur or blogger.
The internet is all yours to conquer. All you need is a fast site.
Post a Comment
Ask any Doubt related to this site...