You are already aware of the importance of the website load speed. Attention spans have dropped to an all-time low and are dropping even more, and people just don’t want to spend their quality time waiting for web pages to load.
So, if you have got a website built by a professional developer who made use of the best practice of coding then your website will have a good speed. If not, then you have to look at our list of how you can improve your website’s speed:
Caching
The Why
Making use of caching software on your website is one of the easiest ways to speed up your site. When you visit a website that web caching software, your computer will download a copy of the page and its elements so that in case you visit the page again, it will load the copy already present instead of downloading it again. The cached file remains in your system until the website refreshes its cache.
The Way
If you’re using WordPress, you can then make use of the host of cache plugins that you can easily install on your website. A few of them are WP Rocket and W3 Total Cache. The instructions are easy to implement and you can also discuss with your website’s developer which to install for your website especially in case you have custom-built websites.
CDN
The Why
The content delivery network is best if you’re delivering content in more than one country. CDNs are a group of servers all around the world that store a copy of your website, ready for users nearby to enter your website’s URL into the browser and download the copy onto their computer.
So, say if I hosted my website on a server in the UK and added it to a CDN, If someone from other country typed in my website’s address, they would access the copy on a server in that country, thus reducing the time of downloading the web page.
The Way
There are several CDNs available, paid and free. One of them is Cloudflare- their free plan should cover most of your needs. You need to pay the premium account if you want to secure your website with HTTPS. The set of instructions given are simple. You can get yourself set up on their CDN by accessing your domain name to change the name servers.
HHVM
The Why
It is a bit complicated as HHVM means HipHop Virtual Machine is an open-source virtual machine that you can install on PHP websites such as WordPress or Magento. It will help you to accelerate the loading speed. HHVM powers many websites including Facebook and Wikipedia developed by the team of Facebook engineers to boost the loading speed 10 times faster.
The Way
This one can be trickier to use. You need to consult the developer first and link them to the HHVM website to get the instructions on how to add HHVM to your website.
Change Hosting
The Why
Hosting can make a huge difference to the speed, stability, and even security of the Website. You can easily get a good hosting behind your website as it is available at reasonably-prices.
The Way
First, research the company that offers a good package for your CMS as some companies may be good for WordPress hosting, while others for Magento. Many hosting companies offer free website migration, but before you go ahead with it, you need to discuss it beforehand to ensure it goes smoothly.
General Practices
The Why
The thing that can have the biggest impact is what you post on your website. If you have loads of big images that aren’t sized or compressed properly, then your site can take time to load it.
Other best practices include:
- Keep your CSS code in a single file so that it can fetch it easily.
- Use minimal redirect only in case you need it.
- Indicate the image dimensions in your <img> tag.
- Fix all 404/410 errors
- Keep minimum videos to boost speed loading of your website
Putting Them to the Test
Before you try any of these ways out on your website, do a speed test. Then once you have added the software mentioned above changed hosting or revised the content on your website, do another test and compare the results. This will help you know how well it worked for your website and how much improvement a small change can make.
How Web Media InfoTech can help you?
Web Media InfoTech offers on-time or regular website maintenance services. For instance, if you desire to make a set of changes to your website or to add new pages, upgrades, content addition/changes, our team can help you. Our team had hands-on experience in applying the accurate themes, plugins and integrating a website with the most relevant applications.
Feel free to get in touch with us!!!