4 Tips to Increase Website Speed

More than ever, speed is paramount in digital marketing. Not only is this reflected in the type of web content being published, but it’s also gaining importance when it comes to page load time. As technology improves, the expectations for how fast pages should load only get higher. Right now, if your website takes more than three seconds to load, you can expect around 40% of users to bounce. And that figure is set to get even more unforgiving.

Simply put, getting your website up to speed is essential if you want your business’s website to be competitive. Here are some of the best ways to increase website speed.

Optimize Your Photos and Videos

One of the most reliable tips for increasing your website speed is ensuring your photo and video files are the right size. Many new website creators make the mistake of uploading images with a high pixel count and large file size to ensure they will be viewed in as high of a resolution as possible.

However, this results in incredibly slow page load times, meaning most people will bounce before they even see your ultra-clear photos. The same problem occurs if you try to embed large video files. You can easily compress your photos and videos in a way that will leave them still looking great while allowing your website to load quickly.

Use Page Caching to Increase Website Speed

Marketers who are new at website creation and management may not be aware of just how beneficial page caching is. As your website gets more traffic and expands with new pages, response time can slow down. By adding a page caching plugin to your web host platform, your website’s pages will be stored as copies by search engines that are accessible by users, which reduces the demand on their servers. This can increase website speed by around 80%, making it a highly effective way to make your website more competitive.

Upgrade Your Web Host

Starting out with a shared hosting platform can be a good way to save money for some small businesses (particularly ones that don’t deal with sensitive information online). However, this decision can eventually lead to slower page load times as your business grows. Upgrading to a new host platform, particularly a virtual private server (VPS), will improve the performance of your website.

Use a CDN

Making use of a content delivery network (CDN) will distribute copies of your web pages to various web servers at multiple sites, which gives users more reliable access to your website. This is especially helpful for eCommerce websites with geographically diverse customer bases. So rather than only having your website work really well when accessed through servers near your location, people on the other side of the country or the other side of the globe will enjoy similar fast response times.

Much of the performance of your website has to do with how your code was written and how your website is organized from the beginning, which makes investing in a quality web designer well worth it. And by adding these tools to your website, you can continue to make your website stand out.