If you are wondering why page load time is important, I am here to answer that question. Page load time has a direct connection to conversion rates.
The longer a page takes to load, the more conversions it will cost you.
To improve something, you first need to understand where you israel whatsapp number data are with that metric. So to improve page speed, you start by measuring page speed.
The details below are going to be a bit technical, so bear with me.
Why is page load time important?
Page loading speed is a critical factor that determines a site’s usability. Google how to use emojis to increase ctr considers page speed as one of 200 ranking factors that influence a site’s position in organic results and improve user experience. Faster page loading can directly translate into better rankings, as slow sites result in a poor user experience.
But that’s not all. Having a faster page load time can also increase your site’s crawl rate. The faster pages load, the more pages Google can crawl simultaneously, which means Google will cover more parts of your site in one go.
A high page speed also improves the popularity of the site among Google crawlers. This means that these search spiders start visiting your site more often, which is good news. It is also worth saying that the host and server you choose also determine the page loading time. Managed WordPress hosting, dedicated hosting, etc., are all good options to improve speed.
A little later, the page starts loading and the user can interact with it, and after a while the whole page loads. The time it takes for the page to fully load is super important.
Users may have already found the information before the page shopping data fully loads. And if it takes too long to load, others may have given up and left the site.
As you can see, a lot happens when a page loads and this influences how the user experiences your site.
How to understand page loading time?
There are two main methods for measuring page speed:
Page load time: Indicates the time that elapses from when the browser sends the request to the server until the page is completely loaded.
Time to First Byte: Indicates the time elapsed between the first request being sent to the server and the browser obtaining the first byte of data.
Focusing on reducing page load time and time to first byte should be your two biggest priorities when optimizing site speed. Using these methods, it’s generally easier to achieve a faster page. However, you also have to keep in mind that Google measures page speed as time to first byte, also called TTFB. To rank better, you need to get ahead of TTFB.
How to measure page/site speed
Before making any changes to your site, consider your site’s performance first. There are multiple tools to test and measure page speed. Two good solutions are the Pingdom speed test and GTmetrix, which comes with options for beginners.
#1. Optimize with Google Page Speed Insights
You can also check your site with Google PageSpeed Insights to see where you stand. Google Page Speed Insights generates a list of easy-to-implement suggestions that can improve page speed in a matter of minutes.
This tool, owned by Google, gives you everything you need to optimize the metrics that matter to Google. Enter the URL of the page in the text field. Then click Analyze.
how to reduce your websites page speed
PageSpeed Insights then analyzes the content of the page and scores it between 1 and 100. You’ll also find suggestions for improving page loading speed. The following report is for my site: kamayobloggers.com/blog.
There are many suggestions here.
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Source: Pagespeed Insights
You also get a separate score and list of suggestions for the desktop and mobile versions of the site. This gives you a handy list of suggestions that you can use to separately optimize the mobile and desktop versions of your site.
The information gives you a starting point to understand and optimize the speed of your pages. Additionally, you can look for a CTO as a service for startups to solve all your technical problems.
#2. Choose a managed host
The host you use plays a major role in website management as well as performance. This includes page speed. One mistake with mediocre hosting is that what you save in monthly fees you lose in revenue. Cheap hosting is the main culprit for slow page loads. Cheap hosting clubs share the same resources with multiple sites on overloaded servers, which slows down page load times.
There are performance-focused hosts like Kinsta that give you a platform optimized for speed.
#3. Compress and optimize your images
Images enhance web pages while increasing the quality of the content. However, large images slow down your site. People have become better readers these days, so you need to provide quality, well-researched content with a long-term goal. And that means you can’t do without images. But you can optimize them.
Image optimization includes changing file formats (from PNG/JPG to WEBP), enabling lazy loading, and lossless image compression.
When you reduce the image file size, you reduce the size of the image and this allows for faster page loading. There are plugins like WP Smush that you can use for this.
Once installed and activated, the plugin resizes and compresses images without affecting their quality. It includes lossless compression, lazy loading, and bulk image optimization features.
You can use plugins as they have many compression options to the point of reducing the size by 85%.
The plugin also uses the Webp format which allows for lazy loading and other features.
One example I can cite is Fyle . Their blog is full of quality content on expense management. There are at least 400 articles covering different aspects of expense management, accounting, international payments, and global banking. All their images are optimized and load quickly. Imagine if they weren’t optimized. The site would take forever to load.
#4. Enable browser cache
Browser caching is another form of caching to improve loading times. It allows the browser to store information such as stylesheets, images, and javascript files. It doesn’t need to reload the page with all of these disparate elements every time a user visits it.
Just like W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket is a powerful caching plugin that you can use on your site. It allows page caching and preloading to optimize page speed. WP Rocket is another plugin with the same features.
For example, check out this page about outsourcing customer service . Browser caching means that all images on the page are stored locally so that the page loads quickly the next time it is called.
Another tip you can use is the following:
Use Expires headers for static site components and Cache-Control headers for dynamic site components. Using these headers allows you to cache various site components such as images, stylesheets, and Flash. This minimizes HTTP requests and improves page load time. Using Expires headers allows you to control how long components of a page can be cached.
Expires: Wed, 15 October 2028 20:00:00 GMT
When using Apache, you can set the time for cached content using the default expires file. This sets the expiration date as a specified number of years from the current date.