There are quite a number of reasons why one needs to improve the quickness of their web pages. One of them is pretty obvious. The more seconds wasted on web page loads, the higher the chances of page abandonment altogether!
If your pages take a century to load, then don’t be surprised that most customers will say goodbye even before they see what you’ve got to offer! Because let’s face it; no one likes to feel like their precious time is being wasted.
In truth, slow pages can adversely affect your online business. In fact, a recently conducted study by Google shows that 53 percent of mobile site visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load!
Boy…3 seconds. That’s a pretty short time don’t you think? But with how busy people are these days, it’s no wonder their concentration spans have grown considerably intolerant.
Plus in terms of SEO, page load speed is one of the vital ranking metrics employed in desktop searches. With mobile page load speed poised to become yet another ranking factor by July 2018!
That being said, let’s have a look at the top 3 common issues that affect page load speed, and how you can effectively remedy them.
- Image File Size
Image file size is secretly the largest culprit making web pages considerably slow. In fact, majority of webmasters that upload content to our websites might not be well-endowed with image optimization skills. Perhaps more shocking is that few of them comprehend its importance. In turn, the end result can be quite frustrating. You’ll find that very large image sizes were used in areas where a reduced image size would have been optimal; with a similar visual result!
So how does this work? Well, the larger the image size, the more pixels that have to be loaded. To minimize load time, you’ll need to reduce the size (or resize) the image before uploading it. You can use HTML (hypertext markup language) parameters to execute this.
If your business happens to use CMS (content management system), then you’re just in luck because there are plenty of plugins you can use to effectively resize the image without it losing its quality.
- Presence of an Unused JavaScript
It is a common practice for most websites to utilize a header or footer file when it comes to setting up their navigation as well as footer areas for each of their pages respectively. Since these areas remain relatively constant for the most part, adding these files means that you can program them once and replicate the process on each page.
Pretty efficient, right? Especially when it comes to updating them. For instance, if you opt to change the navigation, then one change made in the header file will automatically be translated to subsequent pages containing the header file.
Despite such benefits, there are problems that occasionally arise with regard to JavaScript. For starters, there are certain elements in JavaScript needed on each page of your website. For example, the likes of Google Analytics tracking JavaScript.
On the other hand, certain elements of Java Script might only be required on specific pages of your website.
Hence, pages not utilizing or requiring the JavaScript still have to load the said script placed in the header file. In turn, this increases page load time. Plus what’s funny is that it does so, despite the said element not even being needed in the given page in the first place!
To remedy this, one needs to evaluate the JavaScript that was initially used in the header file. Is it recommendable for it to be there? If not the case, then you can remove it and transfer it to say, the body area, so as to enable the script to load in that specific page instead of in all the pages.
- Item Loading coming from third party websites
Perhaps it’s your desire to load third-party website items such as advertisements, video player embeds, social sharing buttons, or even trackers? Well, we caution you to keep it to a minimal as much as possible.
Why is this the case?
Because you never know the speed at which a third-party server plus its assets will load. So if you happen to be loading assets originating from a third party that have painstakingly slow speeds, then it could translate to your page load time as well!
There is only one solution to this; only use third-party assets when you have to.
That being said, if you’d like to retrieve more tips and tricks to increasing your web page load speeds, contact 4Spot Marketing today. You can email us at Info@4SpotMarketing.com or call us at 702-721-9763. We offer a free consultation to determine what approach will serve your company best.
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