Blog: 8 Tips to Improve Your Page Speed

Page Speed

Offering a great customer experience is a top priority for many brands and organizations, and an extension of this is how their website and apps perform.

Thus, businesses pay great attention to page speed when creating their websites. Page speed refers to how quickly users can jump from page to page on your website. This is the key feature if you want to attract traffic to your website.

Compromising your page speed will have an opposite reaction. People will waste no time in moving to the next best alternative.

Keep reading to learn more about page speed and answer all the how-tos.

What is page speed?

Page speed is the time a page takes to load on your website. In some instances, it is also referred to as a measure of how quickly the contents of your page unfold. Similarly, it is also confused with the first byte. This is the time a search engine takes to receive the first byte of information from your website. 

What is site speed?

Generally confused with page speed, site speed is entirely different. Site speed measures the time taken on average for your website to load while users are sifting through it. 

You can review your site speed report from Google Analytics which shows stats about your site speed. 

How to check your page speed instantly?

Google’s page speed insight is the place to go when you want to discover your page speed. It shows the vital stats compiled by mobile and desktop devices. You can access all this data for free. However, it is advisable to concentrate more on mobile page speed.

Google has introduced its mobile-first index because mobile devices generate 50% of traffic. This means that high page speed can get you recognized by Google search.

Other data points presented with page speed scores are:

• First Contentful Paint
• First Meaningful Paint
• Time to Interactive
• First Input Delay

Without a developer background, you can view the First Meaningful Paint and its page speed. It shows the time your page takes to load enough content for users to start interacting with it.

If you want to confirm the data obtained from Google by other sources, you can try out the following:

• WebPagetest
• GTmetrix
• IsItWP

Each of these resources provides an in-depth review of your page speed. However, in order to rank well on Google, it is vital to stick to Google Analytics. This way, you know how the search engine itself views your website. You can make the necessary changes to improve your performance by going through the results.

Why is page speed important?

Having an insight into your page speed is essential for two reasons.

Search Engines

Page speed is a major determiner of SEO. Having a high page speed means your website has adapted the correct SEO strategy. This makes it all the more likely to appear on search engines. 

Google has even declared page speed as a prominent ranking factor. This means that page speed is highly valued by the search engine. By giving the users quick answers to their queries, you are securing your place on the search engine. 

User Experience

83% of users that visit a website expect it to relay information in a flash. A slight delay in this process, and they would quickly shift to another website. This could considerably make you lose out on your web traffic which in turn affects sales and revenue. 

Providing the users with the experience they are looking for can work wonders for your website. Page speed is an essential component that affects the user’s experience.

8 Tips To speed up your webpage?

Increasing the page speed of your website can be tricky but not impossible. Read further to discover how you can quickly boost those stats.

1. Compress your files

Most often, lengthy files on your page can considerably slow it down. In this case, you should choose file-compression tools. Without large files, your web page can operate like a flash.

Slow server response time has a direct impact on page speed. The ideal server response time should be under 200ms. A few elements you can work on to improve your server response time and hence your page speed are

2. Work on server response time

• Website traffic
• Page resources
• Server software
• Hosting provider

If server response time poses a problem, then the problem lies with the above-mentioned factors. Changing the ones that are fuelling the problem can increase your page speed.

3. Compress images

Large image files are just as problematic as large files. Compressing them into smaller files using online tools can prevent negative impacts. You will find your page speed increasing and your web traffic escalating.

4. Browser caching

Browser caching is a smart way to balance page speed and user preference efficiently. Browser caching stores the information of a user when it visits a website. Thus, when they return to that website, they are presented with the same or similar content. This increases overall page speed and contributes to a user-friendly experience. 

5. Minimize your code

Another strategy to magnify page speed is to minimize your HTML code. Try removing unnecessary spaces, commas, or comments. Change the formatting if needed to bring down the size considerably. This will help you achieve your goal of increasing the overall speed of your website.

6. Opt for a content distribution network

You can receive data on your website faster if you opt for a content distribution network. Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, and Akamai are a few trusted CDNs that can get the job done.

7. Get rid of render-blocking JavaScript

Render-blocking resources like JavaScript are parts of a code in a web file that substantially reduce its page speed. Removing such render-blocking codes can incredibly spiral your web speed.

8. Limit your redirects

Stuffing your website with redirects that serve no actual purpose can slow down its speed. Maintain a minimum amount of redirects so your purpose is fulfilled and your page speed is not compromised either.

Conclusion

A high page speed not only drives bundles of traffic towards your site but also rockets your sales. Maintaining the ideal page speed is, therefore, integral for any business wishing to succeed on search engines.