7 Little Changes That'll Make a Big Difference with Your Page Speed

21 August 2019

We live in a mobile age. Your customers are busier than ever and you face an uphill battle when it comes to grabbing and sustaining your attention. This means they’re unlikely to have time to wait around for websites which are slow to load. In fact, a page load time of just 3 seconds can increase your website’s bounce rate by 38%. If you’re to maintain a competitive edge in the cutthroat world of e-commerce, you’ll need to take steps to increase your page speed.

Here are 7 little changes that could make a big difference…

Optimise your code
Minify scripts like CSS, Java etc. wherever possible and get rid of any extraneous spaces or characters. This can be a long and fiddle process but it can make a huge difference.

Get rid of redirects
There are many reasons why you might use redirects (such as AB testing) but these can seriously hobble your page speed. Use a link reclamation service to rectify them.

Cut back on Flash content
It can make for cool animations and great interactivity, but it’s also bulky and slow. What’s more, search engine crawlers don’t like it very much.

Optimise your graphics
Bulky graphics can also lead to slower page loads. Use a nice efficient format like PNG and use 16 colours or less. Try to use CSS sprites rather than graphics for buttons and icons.

Leverage cache control
This can make for a faster and smoother experience for those who use your site regularly.

Rethink your servers
No matter what you do on the back end, your servers can still seriously bottleneck your page speeds if you’re on a shared hosting plan.

Use a Content Distribution Network
Alternatively, you may benefit from a CDN, which stored multiple copies of your site across several geographically diverse points to enable faster page speeds.

Here at Wida Group we have built over a 1000 websites so we know how to make sure your website is performing to the best of its ability – More about our web design or hosting services.