5 Actionable Tips To Optimize Page Speed

Are you unable to rank well in search engine results? Does your website have a high bounce rate? Do your customers abandon your website before you can make a sale?

Website loading speed is one of the crucial factors that can lead to poor performance.

Research conducted by Aberdeen Group shows that a reduction of 11% in page views can be observed if your website speed is delayed by just one second. It further decreases the customer satisfaction rate by 16% and conversions by 7%.

Google also considers the speed of any website as one of the factors in ranking it on the search engine. 

To generate sales from your website, there are some parameters that you need to pay attention to avoid delays in website loading speed.

Follow these 5 actionable tips to optimize page speed and to enhance user experience on your website.

Website hosting package upgrade

If you’re using a shared network, there’s always the risk that you’ll encounter issues when your website starts generating huge traffic.

For traffic and resource-intensive websites, one should switch to private, dedicated, or high performing VPN hosting platforms. Through this kind of hosting, you can get access to dedicated resources and faster technology, plus many other options to fine-tune your server and reduce website loading speed. 

Optimize videos and images

The images and videos posted on your website can also be the main culprit in the slow website speed. 

Two factors to consider in this area include:

• Number of images and videos included on a particular page
• The size of each image or video on a particular page

To rectify your slow website speed, you need to focus on both factors.

• The images need to be uploaded in a size that fits the design of your website. This means resizing it as per that requirement and not upload it in original full size. 

• Compress them if possible, as this will reduce the file size (be it an image or a video) without sacrificing image quality.

• Always upload in JPG format as it maintains image integrity without wasting any unnecessary space.

• Maintain a healthy balance in the total number of assets on your website to maintain optimal website speed.

Utilize a content delivery network

Your website welcomes all the traffic on a single server. If a user located far away from your server tries to access your website, the response will be delayed compared to a visitor situated closer to the server. This issue is rectified by employing content delivery networks.

By deploying a CDN, you will be able to issue datacenters at various geographical locations. It will distribute visitors on your website to the server located closest to them, decreasing website loading speed.

Deploy caching, page speed plugin

How great would it be if the server served the same web files before refreshing them to the user who accessed them before! It would not only decrease the page load times but will also prevent the browser from making new requests to the server each time the user revisits the website.

Browser cache settings can ease the heavy technical lifting on your website and is a robust page speed solution. It is noticed that a cached webpage loads quickly and decreases the load on the server by 80%. For WordPress websites, WP Rocket is an excellent solution that can not only handle page caching but many other page-speed optimization methods too.

Eliminate redirects

In the redirection process on your website, an extra step gets included in the loading process. This slows down the browser and ultimately reduces the speed of your website. 

You can also opt to change the original page itself instead of creating a redirecting page. Try to avoid the creation of redirection pages as much as possible as they always affect the website speed to some extent.

Take action on every one of these factors to avoid losing loyal customers and potential leads. A faster website will not only improve your well-planned marketing strategies but will also help you drive more traffic and sales to your business. If everything else fails, you can look for the help of an expert to help you rectify these issues on your online platform.

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**About the Author: Rajesh Bhimani is the Founder at Skynet Technologies, Website Design and Development Agency. He has 20 years of experience in Technology and Marketing industry. When he isn’t working, you can find him cooking for his family or reading some fiction. You can connect with him on Twitter.