Your site is where making a good first impression is especially important. And we are talking not only about high-quality design and content but also the usability of the pages in general. A slow website can cause a lot of trouble: affect your reputation, lower conversions, and scare off potential buyers or customers. Therefore, it is important to ensure fast page loading: choose a high-quality website builder, optimize images and avoid an overabundance of design elements. We have collected ten techniques for website optimization, after which the pages will start loading much faster.
What is website optimization, and why is it important
Site speed is the time that elapses from a click on a link to a full-page load. A site that loads completely in less than three seconds is fast.
It might seem that a couple of extra seconds of loading make little difference. However, site speed affects several key business metrics: usability, user engagement, conversion, and search engine indexing.
The convenience of use. It’s simple – the faster the site loads, the faster the visitor can use its functions: for example, go to the online store or contact the support service. A fast site creates happy customers who are more likely to return for their next purchase.
User engagement. A fast site is more likely to hold the user’s attention. For example, if the payment process in an online store takes too long, the customer may become impatient and not complete the purchase. The same applies to filling out online forms and simply navigating between pages.
Conversions: According to research, a tenth of a second delay can reduce conversions by 7 percent. Imagine how a delay of one or two seconds can greatly affect site traffic. If the user is uncomfortable with the site, he will immediately go to the page of your competitors.
Search engine indexing. Search engines take site speed into account when indexing. This means that a fast site is more likely to climb to the top of search queries.
How to speed up your website: 10 best tricks
- Don’t overload your home page
- Concentrate on the cover
- Reduce the number of media files
- Optimize images
- Consider the interaction of text and images
- Give preference to text content
- Limit the number of styles and fonts
- Limit the number of animated images
- Optimize your site for smartphones
- Limit the number of third-party apps
Do not overload the home page.
Perhaps the most important advice in the article: the home page should be concise and as clear as possible for the user. Many contents (text, video, static, and animated images) can scare the visitor away and distract him from important functions and services. The function of the home page is to convey the site’s essence and encourage the visitor to study it in more detail. Therefore, leave only the most necessary information and place detailed information on other pages – for example, “About the company” or “Photo gallery.” For easier navigation, use CTAs (Calls to Action). For example, if you want to focus on your blog, add a preview of one or two articles to the home page, and place a “Go to blog” button below them.
Concentrate on the cover
The site’s cover is the top of the page that is visible to the visitor before they start scrolling down the site. This is the most important part of the site – it is loaded and shown to the user first.
Add key elements to your cover page: your company logo and name, a slogan, and a call-to-action button. Think about what message you want to convey to the visitor in the first place, and leave only content that is relevant for this purpose. The rest can be hidden at the bottom of the page after scrolling. Try not to add animated images to the cover – they slow down page loading and distract the user from the rest of the content.
Reduce the number of media files
Imagine that the site is a storefront. The correct arrangement of items in the display window helps grab the customer’s attention and focus on the most important items. A showcase overloaded with goods looks untidy and only scares away visitors. Follow the “quality over quantity” rule. Before adding this or that element to the site, ask yourself the question: “Why is the element important? How will it help to attract more visitors to the site? “If you don’t have an answer – feel free to delete. To “cut” does not mean “get rid of completely.” Some media may slow down the site a little but help convey the message of the page or keep the visitor’s attention. Such elements do more good than harm and must be left behind. If you don’t know where to start general cleaning of the site,
Photo galleries. The more photos in the gallery, the longer they will take to load. Reduce the size of the gallery and keep only the most important photos – especially if they are on the main page. If you need to place many photos on the site, create a separate page for them, where the link from the main menu will lead.
Embedded content. Embedded videos from Youtube and Facebook always slow down the site. Since such items are hosted on third-party servers, your hosting cannot optimize them. To fix the problem, reduce the amount of embedded content or use video boxes instead. In this case, the hosting can control and optimize such elements, so they have much less impact on the site’s speed.
Read More: How to Open an Online Clothing Store: Step-By-Step Instructions from A to Z
Optimize images
The easiest trick is always to convert PNG to JPEG. The JPEG format is better optimized for websites: images are lighter, load faster, and have almost no loss in quality. PNG is mainly used for images with transparent backgrounds or on the websites of professional photographers. To convert images to JPEG, use TinyJPG, Compressor.io, or ImageOptimizer. cloudretouch sites automatically convert images to WebP. It is a new format that compresses files better than JPEG and PNG and is supported by most browsers. Plus, any images you crop in the cloudretouch Editor are automatically optimized to fit your site.
Another useful feature of cloudretouch sites is the lazy loading of images. Upon opening the site, the user is instantly shown all low-resolution images, replaced in a few moments with high-quality images. This makes the site faster, and users do not see a blank white screen during loading.
Consider the interaction of text and images.
Divide the text and images into two visual blocks – otherwise, they will merge and interfere with each other. One of the classic mistakes is to place white text on top of a color image on a site with a white background. Since images load slower than text, the caption completely merges with the background – and the user sees only a blank screen until the download is complete. To avoid this, make the text color contrast with the background.
For the same reason, don’t make the text part of the graphic layout – unless, of course, you need to create a logo. For example, if you make your headline part of an image, it will load later than the main body of the text and create a negative first impression of the page. At the same time, the text title is loaded instantly and helps keep the visitor’s attention for a longer period.
Give preference to text content.
Fast loading isn’t the only reason to prioritize text usage. Detailed and high-quality text content helps search engines understand what your site is about. This, in turn, pushes the page to the top of search queries. Images have almost no effect on SEO – so they must add alt-text to them.
Limit the number of styles and fonts
Using a maximum of two to three fonts adds brand integrity and improves site performance. This is especially true for non-standard fonts: they are the same graphic elements as images or videos, so they take longer to load.
Also, limit different styles: for example, if you are using regular and bold type, avoid italics and underlines. Each style of the same font is loaded separately, so using all of them simultaneously also slows down the page loading speed.
Limit the number of animated images
Animated images are a powerful tool: they add dynamics, serve as navigation and keep the visitor’s attention. However, such files are very heavy – they not only take a long time to load themselves but can slow down the loading of other elements. Avoid GIFs in particular. Even the smallest “gif” weighs a lot and negatively affects the site’s speed. Use MP4 files instead – they are no different from GIFs visually, but they weigh much less and begin to play even before the download is complete.
Optimize your site for smartphones
More and more people are using the internet on their smartphones – so make sure your site displays correctly on small screens. Sites on cloudretouch are automatically optimized for smartphones and iPads – however, you can manually change some elements for better performance. For example, the cover on the mobile version is much smaller, so leave only the essentials on it: the name of the company, the logo, and the call to action.
In addition, reduce or replace elements that affect loading speed: animated and static images, videos, special effects, fonts, and so on.
Limit the number of third-party applications
Third-party applications are items that are not under your hosting provider’s control. For example, an Instagram feed, a testimonial widget, or embedded Google Maps showing your location. Third-party applications use IFrame technology, which is essentially an embedded web browser. In simple words, when using such an application, you load the site within the site, which significantly affects performance. Many third-party apps are very useful and shouldn’t be abandoned entirely. But here’s how you can optimize their performance:
Disable third-party apps one by one and check how much the website loading speed has changed. Remove applications that significantly slow down the site and do not provide commensurate benefits.
If possible, replace third-party applications with services within your hosting with similar functionality. For example, both the Instagram feed and the cloudretouch gallery showcase photos. However, the cloudretouch gallery is controlled by the hosting itself, so that it will load much faster.
