Web page loading speed is a characteristic that plays a huge role in how quickly you will move to the top of Google's search results. Since June 2018, it has been a ranking factor in the mobile version of this search engine.
Fast sites are loved not only by crawlers, but also by users. Web page loading delays of even a few milliseconds seriously reduce conversions and the bottom line of an online business.
Today you will learn about what tools are available for measuring the loading speed of blogs, online portals and online stores, why you should order reliable and fast hosting to speed up your progress, as well as what actions are performed first to make a web project fast.
How to measure site speed
PageSpeed Insights is the most popular tool that checks the speed of a site. In addition to information about how quickly from the moment you enter a URL and press the Enter button, the content of a web page becomes available for viewing, this online service identifies factors that prevent a resource from loading quickly.
Other free tools for measuring site speed:
- gtmetrix.com
- tools.pingdom.com
- webpagetest.org
- performance.sucuri.net
- pagelocity.com
Ways to speed up the site
- Enable compression . Use gzip for this, a utility that reduces the size of JS, HTML, CSS files that weigh more than 150 bytes. It is not recommended to use gzip compression for images - instead reduce the weight of images in Photoshop or with Squoosh.
- Minify HTML, CSS, and JS files . This is done by removing extra spaces and characters, comments, etc. Google recommends using HTMLMinifier, CSSNano, csso and UglifyJS utilities to minify files. Site loading speed increases after reducing the size of HTML and CSS files.
- Remove redirects . Redirects from one web page to another slow down the loading of the resource. To find redirects in an online store, blog or portal, use Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Netpeak Spider software.
- Use browser caching . If you set up this optimization method, the first time a web page is loaded, its content will be saved on the user's computer. The next time he visits the same page, the cached version will be loaded. This takes less time than if the web page was loaded from the server.
- Rent a virtual server . Web projects on this type of hosting are loaded instantly. In addition, VDS is cheaper than a dedicated server. Therefore, if you ask an experienced webmaster a question about how to speed up the loading of the site, you will most likely hear: "Rent a VDS!".
- Use a CDN . A content delivery network is a set of servers located in different parts of the world. When connecting to a CDN, the files of the online resource are copied to each of these server computers . Next, when the user visits the site, the CDN determines which of the servers is geographically closest to the user and downloads the content from it. Thanks to this, the speed of loading the online resource remains high, regardless of which part of the world it is accessed from.
- Optimize images . The first rule is to use PNG for graphics with fewer than 16 colors, JPG for other photos or pictures. The second rule is to use CSS sprites for icons, buttons and other images that often appear on online project pages. The third rule — if the quality of the graphics should not be perfect, use image compression services. For example, Squoosh.
What accelerates the site
After you follow the recommendations above, test the site again for speed and see that the loading of web pages has decreased by a few milliseconds or even seconds, prepare to reap the following fruits of your efforts:
- decrease in the percentage of refusals, which has a positive effect on the improvement of behavioral factors;
- increasing the level of trust on the part of search engines and more chances to bring the web project to the TOP with less effort;
- an increase in the number of returning customers who remembered the high speed of the blog or online store and the fact that they did not have to waste time waiting for pages to load.
These three benefits of speeding up your online resource ultimately lead to you starting to make more money, whether you're selling products, providing services, or promoting affiliate products.
Pay attention! You should perform a site speed test regularly. Do not forget that a fast online store or portal can start to "slow down" after installing a new extension, add-on, plugin or theme.
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