Tips to increase your page load speeds

Having a fast loading website is a crucial factor in both search engine optimisation (SEO) and user experience (UX). We know that Google uses it as a ranking factor for your website, and visitors expect a website to load quickly. You’re much more likely to lose customers to your competitors because of page load speeds, and the chances of them returning are slim. As websites become more content-rich, it’s never been more important that this doesn’t slow down your website. We’ve put together some tips to increase your page load speeds in order to help boost your SEO.

1. Optimise videos and images

One of the biggest culprits that are increasing your page load time is videos and images because they take up a significant portion of a page’s overall size. To rectify this, you need to reduce the file size of all media assets. You can do this a variety of ways.

Appropriately size your images: Don’t upload a 7000-pixel wide image if it’s going to be displayed at 600 pixels. Of course, retina is a consideration, but you need to ensure that photos are sized correctly to the parameters of the design.
Make sure every photo is compressed: Even photos that have been sized appropriately are still going to be much larger files than required. This is why you need to compress all your photos as this reduces the file size significantly without sacrificing picture quality. The same goes for your videos (especially HD videos!)

2. Page caching

Page caching is another great way to improve your websites page load time. Cached pages are shown as static HTML versions of a certain page to help avoid time-consuming queries to the database of your site. A web page that is cached will load much quicker whilst also lowering server load by over 70%. If you use WordPress you can easily install one of the many popular page caching plugins available.

3. Switch off the plugins you won’t use

Speaking of plugins, it’s important to note that using too many can slow down your website. So choose them carefully and only use those which are necessary and essential. A case study revealed how one website was able to reduce website speed from 4.23 seconds to 1.33 seconds just by deactivating and deleting unnecessary plugins.