Today everyone is too busy and need to have everything to be done speedily. Likewise, Website speed needs to be a top priority. Why? Just by delaying one-second in loading time may result in:
- 16% reduction in customer satisfaction
- 11% of lesser page views
- 7% loss in conversions
Some of the reports say that one second of load lag time would cost them $1.6 billion in sales each year. So the question is, how fast should your website load be? 47% of users say that they suspect pages to load in two seconds or less, and 64% of mobile users assume websites to load in less than four seconds. As per Google research, the average loading times for various industries never meet those benchmarks.
From the above image, it was clear that on an average website response time for all of these businesses is eventually higher than the best practices line.
If you speed up your website, it will give you a tremendous advantage over your competitors with slower loading times. The crucial thing to remember is that a fast website loads with some sacrifices. In order to provide the most optimal, quick and effective user experience to your customers, simple, best and easy ways to increase your website response time without too much effort.
Best ways to improve your website response time
- Minimise the HTTP requests: The more prominent part of the response time is spent in downloading the front end components of the page such as images, scripts, CSS, and so on. Hence, the lesser elements to download mean less HTTP, thus more high-speed response time of your page. Use merged files, CSS sprites and image Maps. You may find them a little competitive at the beginning, but if you really want your website to operate well, this is the place to start.
- Stay away from redirects: Always avoid redirects, unless it is absolutely necessary, as they notably slow the response time. This happens because the redirection loads an empty page until the HTML from the new location arrives. So never insert any redirections unless you are really in need.
- To impress, please compress: This is an excellent way to improve the response time of your site. Decrease the size of the HTTP response by compressing, which helps to decrease the response time of a site. For doing this, the most popular method is Gzip which helps to reduce the response size by almost 70%. Generally, most of the websites choose HTML content to compress, but you can step ahead and compress even your scripts and stylesheets. This will decrease the weight of your website, and eventually improve user experience.
- Monitor your server Performance: It will be useless if your server is not working well, even if you have the best performing, most beautiful and efficiently designed website ever. You should monitor your server performance thoroughly.
- Minify the JavaScript and CSS Documents: Minify means removing all the unnecessary characters from the source code without losing any of its functionality. This method works perfectly, especially for JavaScript documents as it reduces the size of the downloaded file. Using tools like JSMin, Packer, and YUI Compressor compress CSS files, directly improving website response time.
- Configure Caching: Caching means ensuring fast delivery to visitors. If there is no caching, then the browser request assets from the server each time a page load instead locating them from a local or intermediary cache by using the tools and plugins which enables storing files locally on a users computer. The files are next reused in future visits. It fastens loading time and guarantees better UX.
- Use a CDN: A CDN(Content Delivery Network) is the framework of a distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers, and they geographically spread out to provide content to users as fast as possible. This assures all web page visitors enjoy quick response times.
Conclusion
The prominence of website loading speed can’t be emphasised. Page loading and response time may make or break the success of your website. You just can’t launch a website and forget about it. Regularly monitor your page loading speed to understand your standing and identify areas for improvement. There is not just one thing you can do. So by start following the list of the best practices that are mentioned above.
Krify is the leading website development company based in India and the UK have experienced web developers who work for different domains. Are you interested in the development of a website for your business please contact us today?
