There are many things that web designers and site owners must keep in mind, such as the loading time and speed of their sites. One problem with web design is that websites sometimes do not load correctly or they take too long to load. This can be irritating to visitors, and it can even make people leave your site too soon. In fact, it is a disaster. The truth is that your visitors are just too busy to wait around for a site that won’t load.
One way to tell whether your site is loading too slowly is to study your bounce rate. The bounce rate is the rate at which visitors are leaving your site without taking any major action or doing anything on your page. They may land on your page accidentally, or some may mean to land on your page, then discover it was not what they wanted.
Whatever the reason, you need to reduce your bounce rate if you are going to keep customers on your page long enough to convert them to a customer or lead.
How to Improve Your Website Load Time
There are some things you can do to improve your website loading time. Here are a few ideas that might help you reduce the loading time of your customers and increase your conversions.
Minimize HTTP Requests
HTTP requests are any actions that your customers are asking the server to produce at one time. The more items you have on your page, such as photos, javascript, CSS, and other elements, the longer it will take to load the page.
To lower the number of HTTP requests, try the following:
- Use CSS instead of images when possible
- Combine style sheets into one.
- Reduce scripts and put them at the bottom of the page.
- Look over your page and see what might be slowing it down.
Reduce server response time
If you are getting a high bounce rate, another problem may be with the server. The longer it takes your server to respond to requests, the more frustrated your visitors may be. There are some resources you can use to increase server response time.
- Yslow: Evaluates your site’s speed and gives you tips on how to improve performance
- Google’s PageSpeed Tools: Good resource for best practices on increasing performance speed and how to automate the process.
Enable compression
One of the issues often found with pages that take a long time to load, is that the page is too large due to large file sizes. You can reduce this problem by compressing files that you plan to upload to your site and focus on reducing the overall file sizes. GNU Zip is a popular compression tool that allows you to do this.
By compressing some of the bulkier file sizes, you will be able to provide a site that loads more quickly and keeps people on your page longer.
Enable Caching
Another reason your page may load more slowly is that the cache needs to be enabled. are formed clear out junk from the server and make things move faster. This site explains different ways you can clear the cache of the server to allow everything to work more efficiently.
Minimize Resources
JavaScript and other formats of code take up a huge amount of resources to run properly. To minimize its impact, try tools such as the Closure Complier, JSMin, and the YUI Compressor tool.
Optimize your images
Images take a lot of loading time. Often your visitors are experiencing extremely long load times due to images. Sometimes it is only a couple of images that are affecting the process. By reducing the size through compression and optimizing your images by improving the quality at smaller sizes, you will decrease the loading time.
Remember, unless you are a photography site, there is no need to have huge images with exorbitant file sizes on your website. You can get the same message across with your pictures, infographics, and other images with a smaller size.
Optimize CSS Delivery
Another way to create less load time for customers and visitors is to optimize your CSS. CSS is an alternative to traditional HTML. But sometimes the code weighs down the server by the way it is arranged. To optimize it for faster load times, you need to remove the extra code that sometimes drains resources from the server and decreases speed in loading your pages.
By using external CSS instead of inline CSS, you will reduce the loading time because the server is not having to pull more code that is often redundant from within the inline code. It’s also advisable to only use one external CSS file rather than several. When it has to pull from too many, it slows down the entire process.
If this all seems technical, that’s because it is. When you are trying to increase your speed on your website, it takes a careful look at the internal code of a page sometimes to see what is causing the problem. This link allows you to check your site’s code to see how many external CSS files your site is pulling from.
Reduce redirects and plug-ins to gain more speed.
Another common problem is that your page may be using too many redirects or plug-ins. Redirects are form handlers that automatically send your users to another page within a few seconds of clicking on the main link. This is sometimes necessary when you have changed your URL, and you wish to inform people about the change. But don’t use this permanently. It inherently slows down your page and creates the problem for the user. It’s better to place a link on a temporary page than to use redirects.
Plug-ins are also often a culprit for slowing down the process of a page so get rid of any that you don’t need on your site to speed up the page for your visitors.
Let Us Maximize Your Site Speed
Some of us love to delve deep into technology. I’m one of those people. But it’s what I do professionally. A business owner just doesn’t have time to mess with all of this. That’s why it’s sometimes best to rely instead on the expert services of a professional web design team.
At Web Design Team, this is what we do. We improve websites. We also create original websites and offer suggestions on how you can maximize your ROI and increase conversions.
We have multiple services we can perform for your site, including site maintenance and scripting that will greatly improve your site’s load time and increase your level of engagement and views.
By helping you design a fast, efficient page that addresses all of these factors, you will experience a much higher conversion rate and start to see your efforts pay off.
Visit WebDesignTeam.com to see what we can do for you. We have expert coder and designers, engineers and artists who understand this process inside and out. Contact us to learn more and get ready to see your sales skyrocket.
Because if customers aren’t waiting for your page to load, you’re not going to make them a customer. Let us help you clear the obstacles that are blocking you from success.