As the digital age continues to disrupt our operations, the website serves as an entry point for any type of sales and transformation of your business. Website speed determines how well a user can perform the action they want on a web page. Therefore, understanding the importance of how you can use website speed is very important as it can lead to a negative user experience. Google PageSpeed update considers website speed as one of the features.
In this article, we aim to discuss the best tools and techniques for how to improve website speed that can be implemented by SEO experts.
What is website speed?
Site speed means how fast your website responds when a user clicks on the URL that links them to your site. According to Google PageSpeed standards, site speed is an important metric for faster access to products, information, and services by users.
How can you check website speed?
Site speed can be tested using various free online tools such as GTMetrix, Google Casinos Insights, WebPageTest, Explore My Site with Google Think, etc. Let’s examine each tool in more detail.
- Pagespeed Insights If you are interested in knowing how a particular web page performs in terms of loading time, then understanding Google’s page speed is the best option. Pagespeed Insights provides information on how to improve page load time. The best part of using this tool is that it is Google’s open-source tool where one can access all the supporting documents provided by Google that will help identify and resolve errors to improve site speed as well as Google’s best.
- GT Metrix It is one of the most reliable tools for testing and improving website load time. Provides a detailed analysis of all aspects affecting loading time. I prefer to use this tool as it provides possible details. If you scroll down, there is a complete report on how you can use various technical parameters to improve page load time.
- Gift of Speed Quick Gift is one of my favorite tools to measure website speed performance. As well as speed measurement metrics, this tool also provides website speed utility services. This tool also offers the option to check website speed using various locations around the world.
- WebPage Test The WebPage Test Tool provides an in-depth analysis of how you can improve the performance of your website. Includes recommendations on how to use website speed even at the network level, taking into account user network capacity, connectivity, and location. It also offers the option to select a server location when you want to test the performance of your website.
- Test My Site: Think with Google If you are looking for a tool specifically designed to measure mobile site speed, then try my site for the best option.It has the option to download the report to do a detailed analysis. Test My Site is a very reliable tool for speeding up and doing analysis. Just enter the website URL in the search box, and press enter, your website performance report is executed in seconds.
How to improve website loading speed?
Now that we have covered a variety of tools to measure site speed, let’s take a look at some great tips on how to improve website speed.
- Optimize images Compressing an image while uploading it to a server is a good way. In the case of e-commerce, website images are an important part. Improve user engagement by images on the product page. Images over 100 kb in size take a lot of time to load; as a result, the speed of the entire page is affected.
- Use a CDN Content Delivery Network is a distributed network of network servers where multiple copies of websites are stored in various parts of the world. CDN helps deliver content requests to users from the immediate location of their server; as a result, server load time is greatly reduced.
- Delete unused CSS CSS is used to decorate your website. According to unuse CSS.com, 35% of the CSS used on the website is unused. Identifying unused CSS files and deleting them can be a great way to improve website speed. This tool can be used to locate unused CSS files and compress them.
- Minify JS and CSS files JavaScript is a link to build a website. As the number of JavaScript files increases, the number of https requests increases. Reducing JS and CSS files reduces empty spaces, reduces unwanted comments. It also helps to reduce the name of the activity and classes. Minification techniques are used to reduce the size of the byte code, and as a result, less data needs to be downloaded, which in turn reduces the loading time of the website.
Excellent minification tools:
- To minimize HTML, try HTMLMinifier
- To use CSS, try CSSNano and CSS.
- To do a little JavaScript, try Uglify.
- Make good use of Web fonts Typography is an important factor when considering a website design, readability, and accessibility. Using the right Webfont ensures that you follow the best practices outlined above by Google. Each font is considered an additional resource that needs to be loaded. Sometimes improper use of fonts leads to website blockade leading to increased loading time.
- Use Prefetching techniques As the name suggests, in this method, resources are preloaded or provided before the user demands them; as a result, resource loading time is saved. Eg. When a user clicks on a link and visits a website, some of the content and links are already preloaded. In order to use this approach, we need to anticipate user behavior and appropriately plan actions on our website.
The most widely used Prefetching techniques:
- DNS – Download first
- The download starts the link
- Reduce Excess DOM size DOM, also known as the document object model, is an independent visual interface for HTML and xml documents. Sometimes as a result of inefficient coding techniques, large and unnecessary DOM trees are created, which disrupts the speed of the website.
According to the Google Developers’ Guide, the best DOM size you have
- A number of nodes less than 1500.
- maximum depth of 32 nodes.
- Parent node with more than 60 sites for children.
- The Lighthouse tool is a great way to check how much of your website has a DOM size problem. This is how the torchlight bulb report of the DOM excess case
- Use lazy uploads Lazy loading is a terrible way to reduce website loading time. In this website speed mode, only the requested part of the website is loaded, and everything is kept up to date until the user requests that part. Example: A user is using a mobile web application. When a user drops a picture or object on the screen it is loaded, and all parts of the website are rewind; as a result, website load time can be significantly reduced.
Conclusion
Running a website is a daunting task. Finding the right website speed is a must for all businesses. According to Google, the user expects the web page to load within 3 seconds. To meet expectations, we as SEO experts must ensure that a thorough analysis is carried out to determine key points; otherwise, there is a chance that we may lose live traffic and revenue.
The tips mentioned in this article on how to use website speed will help you achieve the page speed you want, but we need to consider the conversion time required for the website developer to apply the recommendations.
We should also analyze reports generated using website speed tools and identify key metrics that affect website loading time. Focusing on these issues and trying to resolve them should be our top priority.
You might be wondering if hiring a Digital marketing agency will help your business. OGEN Infosystem is one of the best Digital Marketing Company in India that creates innovative digital marketing solutions for building long-term brand awareness for the clients. Our digital marketing services include Search Engine Optimization, Online Reputation Management, Website Design and Development, Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Copywriting, and Content Marketing, Local Business Promotion, and Website Optimization.
OGEN Store has a collection of powerful and latest technologies plugins, extensions, and Scripts that are build to uplift the digital presence to the next level.
Need Help?
For any issues you can send us an email at store@ogeninfo.com also let us know if you want to discuss your WordPress project, you can ping us anytime at ogeninfosystem@gmail.com
