How to optimize load speed
Internet users will not stay on a site whose pages are long to load. Meaning, pages that take more than 4 seconds to appear on average. SEO is used to improve your positioning on search engines and to increase the traffic of your site. If your site generates 1000 visits per day, but 950 visitors leave before the page has loaded, you will not see your sales increase, or very little. Here are some pointers on how to optimize load speed on your site.
Choose a good web host
There are a lot of web hosting companies on the market and at all prices. There are two types of servers: dedicated and shared. Shared servers are in principle less efficient. As the name suggests, the servers are shared by several sites which can slow down the performance of yours if too many connections are made to other sites therein. Choose a server dedicated only to your site.
How to optimize load speed: optimize the weight of images
Very often, the weight of the images contained on a website is the main cause of a slow loading speed. You must then optimize the format and weight of your images knowing that the ideal weight of each image is between 50 and 500 kb.
Widgets and themes
If you are using a website building platform, some of them can have an impact on the loading speed of your website. The same applies if you are working with a theme on your website. If the theme you are working with is heavily affected, it is likely that everything will download more slowly.
Externally linked media
Linking videos and images can be a great way to improve your website’s authority, but it can also slow down Page Speed considerably. It is important to consider having videos directly on your site instead of linking them externally.
Watch your code
Use minification to simplify the page code. By optimizing your code, including removing spaces, commas, and other unnecessary characters, you can dramatically increase the speed of your page. The more code and files you have on a page, the longer it will take. Reducing the amount of HTML, CSS and JavaScript can speed it up.
Page speed is essential. If the loading time of your pages is not optimal, you take the risk of losing your visitors and therefore potential customers. Test your website regularly with specific tools.