Do you have answers to the below queries raised by website owners?
Why am I getting very less traffic even though there is rich, legit, and unique content on my site?
My website looks attractive and interactive, but then also I hardly have any visitors.
Why is my site not ranking on Google?
The answer to all your above queries is the load speed of your website. Speed plays an important role in website management. You will not get a single visitor if it takes more than 10 seconds to load the main page of your site, or any page of your website.
The ideal time to load a website page is less than 2 seconds, less than 1 second is awesome! Just check out websites like Google.com or Amazon.com, these websites load within 1-2 seconds. These websites have worked more on page speed and website performance.
The bounce rate will increase if your website page takes more time to load a page. A website that takes less than 1 second to load, their page has an excellent bounce rate. People will get irritated and frustrated if they see that the website which they are trying to access is taking too much time to open, they will eventually close the site or switch to another site. This is termed bouncing, moving from one website to another. The bouncing rate should always be less.
Therefore, page speed plays a very critical role in any website, be it in any niche. There are various free and paid tools to measure page speed, but more importantly, we should find out a way to improve the page speed.
There is no way; in fact, there are many ways through which you can reduce the load speed of your website.
What are the advantages if your website loads within 1 second?
- It improves the user experience.
- One can get good reviews of your website.
- It helps in ranking on Google.
- The bounce rate on your website will reduce.
- Overall website performance of your website will improve.
You are not using the correct hosting
Website Hosting or Web-Hosting is the most important factor in website management. Hosting does not only improve the website speed, it also improves the overall performance. Web-hosting is actually buying a place where you can house your website. In actual reality, there are many cloud servers, and your website can be hosted on any of these servers.
So, a good hosting platform like Hostinger, Godaddy, Hostgator, and Bluehost will host your website on their high-end servers and networks with good storage, this will make the entire site lightning fast, and this is what we need.
So before creating a site, you should have a good hosting platform that has good reviews. Good hosting platforms are a little expensive, but it is worth hosting your site on such a platform. This is actually the first and the most important step in any website management process.
Do not load your site with too many pictures and videos
Pictures with .jpeg or .bmp or .png extension are large in size; similarly video files like .mp4 or .avi are in fact much bigger in size if you compare it with images. I know you want to make your site very gorgeous and nice-looking by uploading images and videos, but at the same time, you are making your site very heavy.
It will take a lot of seconds, even minutes to load a single page. This will definitely irritate the end user, and he will move to another site. So upload a few images and videos, if possible try not to upload videos, in place of that try .gif files which are animated graphics but very less in size, and therefore quick to load.
Use Compression Plugins
Even if you have few images and videos, try to compress them. If you are using WordPress to manage your website, then go for WP-Optimization or Jetpack plugins.
These plugins will shrink your website images; they will also improve the load time, and help boost your conversions.
You will think that using these plugins the image quality will get degraded, but that is not the case, there will be no loss in the quality. Below are some of the free plugins which you can use to compress your images and videos.
1. Optimole
2. WP Compress
3. WP Optimize
4. Imagify
5. EWWW Image Optimizer
6. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
7. reSmush.it
8. WP Rocket
9. Jetpack
Change your theme
A lot of people have shared their experience that after changing the theme their website page speed has increased.
Try to use a theme that is clean, not heavy, and fast to load. Such themes boost website search rankings, get more organic traffic, and provide a great user experience. These themes also improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Below are some of the themes which you can try.
Astra Theme
Neve
OceanWP
GeneratPress
Divi
Delete Unwanted Plugins
We try out a lot of plugins to add some new features and functions, some we install and some we don’t. The plugins which we do not install, we either disable or keep active but we never use them. Review each and every plugin, if the plugins are not in use, or are disabled, please uninstall them.
Each and every plugin is heavy as these are close to 1-10 per MB in size. What is the use of keeping such inactive plugins on your site, it’s better you delete them. Deleting such unnecessary plugins can free up a huge space, and thus can make your site fast.
Also, you need to evaluate every plugin, you will find some plugins which are outdated or old that can slow down your website performance, this can be sorted out either by upgrading or deleting those plugins.
Lessen the Javascript and CSS File
You need to fine-tune your website by removing unnecessary line breaks, and extra space. This simple activity can free up a few MBS data from your page. There are a lot of tools like the CSS Minifier / Compressor which can carry out this activity.
Keep measuring the Page Speed
Make a habit to check and monitor the page speed every week. Keep a track of factors that are making your site slow to load. Use free tools like SpeedVitals, Gtmetrix, and google Pagespeed insights, these tools are easy to use and help to analyze and optimize your website.
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