As you may have heard, Google has implemented a new criterion to determine your ranking on search results, website speed. Increasing your website loading speed is not only important for achieving a high search ranking but it will also affect your visitors’ perception of your website.
Here Rank 1 Digital, following are some of the tips that I highly suggest you so that you can provide a better experience to your website visitors such as:
Use fewer plugins: Most websites use plugins of some sort because they make it easy and quick to add features to websites. For example, content management systems like WordPress come with an array of plugins that can turn a seemingly unusable website into an e-commerce giant. Though plugins add a slice of value to websites and increase their design, they can also make them slow and pram. Many plugins are poorly written, and some may conflict with your existing website’s code. Try to use fewer plugins, and thoroughly review all plugins that are already installed or about to be installed. Use a tool like Query Monitor to monitor the performance of your plugins. Watch for excessive or unnecessary requests for any type of resource.
Content Delivery Networks are important: Media-heavy websites should consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Research shows that CDNs dramatically increase website loading speeds. A CDN is part of a network of servers that are located in different locations. This certifies that websites load rapidly no matter where your visitors are viewing your website.
Compress image files and use lazy loading: It’s worth considering optimizing your image files. As we entirely know, images are a vital part of any website. However, there are many different image formats with different sizes. If you are sure that the smallest file size will not harm the quality of the image file, it is recommended that you use the smallest size possible. Generally speaking, PNG can render graphics with a transparent background but has a larger file size than JPEG. Bitmap image files also take up a large amount of memory. To ensure a faster webpage loading time, it is better to avoid using them. In addition, animated GIFs and Flash files will increase page load times and should be used with caution.
Use cache: A cache allows your website to leave a static copy on users’ devices. This means that the website does not require users to download all the information onto their devices every time they visit. This helps in increasing the website speed as the requests made to your website are less.
Play safe with JavaScript: JavaScript can add valuable design features by making websites snappier, loading them with features, and ensuring they perform better than pages written entirely in HTML 5. However, using too much JavaScript can slow down a site. Remember that JavaScript can be loaded asynchronously.
Use tools to track your website’s performance: It is important to constantly test and monitor your website performance even after you have designed your website. There are automated tools that help you test your website performance on an ongoing basis. Google’s Page Speed Insights, Website Speed Test by Pingdom, and Webpage Test are some of the best tools to measure and track your website speed and performance.
Conclusion: Apart from following all the above tips, you need to do some important things to enhance your website design. Here Web Design Company in Pakistan helps you understand how to build a website that not only loads fast but also looks great.