The speed of your website is important. As Akamai notes, 40% of users will abandon a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load – and that figure is likely to rise with superfast broadband and an increasingly tech-savvy society. The Aberdeen Group reports that slow loading times could impact corporate revenues by up to 9%, so it makes sense to bring your website up to speed. To lend a hand, we’ve put together five ways to boost your website’s loading times.
Cache your pages
Every time we visit a web page, the elements of the page are stored on our machines. These elements include things such as HTML files, stylesheets, images and JavaScript files. This storage is known as a cache and means that, when we go back to the web page, it will load much quicker – and without sending a request to the server to redeliver the resources.
By enabling a cache on your website, you can reduce the time it takes when a visitor returns to your website or clicks through to another page. Static resources, like CSS and JavaScript files, should have a cache lifetime of at least one week. Other resources will require a lower cache lifetime, depending on their nature. Use a WordPress plugin like W3 Total Cache.
Optimise your images
Big images are a killer when it comes to website loading times, so optimising them for the web is essential. Make sure that your images are as small as possible – if your header needs a 500px image, make sure it’s uploaded at that exact width. Remove image comments and metadata, switch to JPEG for maximum efficiency and try an image ‘smushing’ tool.
Enable compression
The chances are that some of the pages on your website are large. Whether that’s because you have lots of images, you’re writing long-form content, or you’re hosting an e-commerce shop, big pages are common – but they also hog server resources and slow down loading times. One of the best ways to improve page loading times is to compress them.
Compressing works by reducing the bandwidth of your pages, meaning there’s less content to deliver to your end user. Speak to your web host about enabling GZIP compression on your server, or consider installing a plugin such as Check and Enable GZIP Compression.
Focus on your above-the-fold content
Above-the-fold content – the content that people will see before they start scrolling – should be prioritised. You can split your CSS into two separate documents – the first, a short part that styles above-the-fold content, and the second that can be deferred until the initial content has loaded in full.
Cut back on your plugins
We get it: WordPress plugins are useful, and it’s likely that you’re relying on a few to power your website. Installing too many plugins, however, can slow down your website, cause technical difficulties and create security issues in the process. Deactivate any that are non-essential, and consider baking in necessary functionality into your WordPress theme.
While some of this site-speed are easy to implement, others require technical knowledge. Work with JAK to optimise your website today. Get in touch on sales@jakinc.uk, call us on 0191 3882 698 or click here to visit our website.