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How to Improve Website Loading Speed
Whether it's making customers wait in line or wait for your website to load, both are bad for business.
According to Google, over half of your website's mobile visitors are likely to 'bounce' (leave immediately) when a site takes more than 3-seconds to load. Desktop users aren't much more patient. 40% of them will leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to display.
Considering the impatience of online visitors, here are two more alarming website loading speed statistics: mobile web page loading times average a whopping 8.6 seconds. The average desktop site loads in just a little over 3 seconds.
How long does it take your website to load?
Fortunately, it's easy to test webpage load time
There are many popular, free tools to audit your webpage's loading speed. Three that are simple to use and offer personalized tips for improvement are Google's PageSpeed Insights (https://pagespeed.web.dev), GTmetrix (create a free account), and Pingdom.
Here's what each of those reports might look like:
You will want to test your site several times, especially in PageSpeed Insights, since their performance score tends to vary.
If your score consistently hits 90 or above, congratulations! Page speed isn't a concern for your site.
How to interpret your webpage speed test results
If your site appears to lag, however, scroll a short way down the reports sections of each tool. Here's where you'll find the specific areas of concern:
Above: PageSpeed Insights' detailed recommendations
Above: Pingdom's detailed findings
Equipped with this information, you're now ready to start improving your page load speed! Three second load time is a good goal. But keep in mind that the average page load speed among sites ranking on page one of Google is 1.65 seconds.
12 ways to make websites load faster
Optimize images
Images typically consume over 60% of a website's bandwidth (source). If your website has images that are too large (both in file size and dimensions), it can significantly slow down your site. Luckily, it's often fast and easy to reduce image file sizes by up to 80-90%.
When optimizing images, however, smaller file size doesn't always lead to faster loading time. Overly compressed images can sometimes slow things down if additional processing is needed to 'unpack' them. Learn more about how to optimize images for the web here. While you're at it, also check out how to optimize images for SEO[here].Lazy load images and videos
Lazy loading delays the loading of images or videos that are further down the page, which improves the load time of top-of-the-page content. This is a simple yet highly effective technique. You can easily add it to your image tags by using theloading="lazy"attribute.
Optimize web fonts
Fonts can have a significant impact on page load times, especially if you're using custom or multiple web fonts. To ensure faster loading, self-host your fonts when possible, load the minimum number of weights and styles for each font, and use modern font formats like WOFF2. Applyfont-display:swapto avoid a flash of invisible text during loading, which reduces the visitors' perceived page loading speed.
Enable browser caching
Browser caching stores static files from your site in your visitor's browser so that on return visits, the pages load faster. It also reduces the burden on your server. Here's a free tool to check if browser caching is working on your site: https://requestmetrics.com/resources/tools/http-cache-checker/Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
CDNs store your website's static content on multiple servers across the globe. When visitors access your site, it is served from the server closest to them, speeding up load times. We've used Cloudflare for over a decade, and we couldn't be happier—they offer a free plan, SSL, security certificates, and more.Enable Gzip compression
Gzip is a common and efficient compression format that reduces file sizes, enabling faster transmission of your website's files. Here's a tool to check if Gzip compression is enabled: https://www.giftofspeed.com/gzip-test/Use asynchronous or defer loading for CSS and JavaScript
By default, when a browser is loading html and reaches a script, it'll have to download that before proceeding. This delays the loading of more urgent elements. Addingdeferorasyncto external JS and CSS file tags instructs the browser to momentarily skip over those files or load them in the background. That way, the rest of your page loading can proceed uninterupted.
Time to retest
Once you've implemented the tips listed above, rerun your page through PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Pingdom. If your score is in the 90s, great! You can stop here. If not, consider the following, more advanced techniques:
Optimize your website's code
Cleaning up your code by removing unnecessary or redundant elements can significantly reduce load time. If you're not comfortable doing this, seek help. For those on WordPress or other CMS platforms, your ability to optimize core code is more limited.Minimize HTTP requests
Reducing the number of elements on your webpage can decrease the number of HTTP requests. This involves consolidating multiple scripts, images, and CSS files. While it's an advanced step, it can dramatically improve load times.Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
Removing unnecessary characters (spaces, line breaks, comments) from your code can shrink file sizes and slightly improve load times. Tools like Minifier can help, though it requires caution to avoid breaking the code.Upgrade your hosting plan
If you've implemented these steps and your site is still sluggish—especially if you're running dynamic content like a WordPress site—you may need to upgrade your hosting. Fortunately, if you're one of our file-based PHP clients, your hosting plan may not be as critical because Cloudflare handles much of the heavy lifting.
By following these strategies, you should be able to make your site load faster, offer a better user experience, reduce bounce rates, improve search engine rankings, and even increase conversions.
Need help with website optimization? We'd love to assist you. Located in the Asheville area, we're just a call away: 828-551-9761
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