When you have a website, your ultimate goal is for people to visit it. However, with hundreds of millions of active sites throughout the internet, competition is fierce. You likely have several competitors going after the exact same customers you are. There are many ways to get more people to your site that can help you rise above your competition. However, that often isn’t enough.
While getting people to your site is great, having them stay and convert is better. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. A lot of different things can impact not only how long people stay on your site, but also whether they convert or not. One of the biggest things that can turn potential customers away is slow website loading times.
If a site takes more than a few seconds to load, there is a good chance visitors will leave your site. Not only that, but they may visit a competitor with faster load times. With all of that in mind, this article is going to go over a few tips to improve the load times of your site.
Use the Right Hosting Provider
While you might think it doesn’t matter, the type of hosting provide you work with can have a large impact on your site loading times. In general, there are three different types of hosting. You have shared hosting, VPS hosting and getting a dedicated server. Each has different pros and cons, and various companies that offer them. SSD VPS hosting can greatly improved the site load speed.
When most people first start their site, they will use cheap and affordable hosting, and it may work for a little. But as your user base grows, so will your need for a better and more robust hosting provider and solution. If not, your traffic levels could greatly slow down your load times and there is not a lot you can do about it, other than finding a better host. If you are looking for a new host, Accu Web Hosting offers an amazing option that you should consider.
Optimize Images and Other Media
When loading your website, one of the biggest causes of slow loading times is images and videos. While these can add a lot of value and charm to your site, it’s not without its drawbacks. As a result, be sure you are smart about how you implement photos and videos.
Now, this doesn’t mean you need to remove images and videos, but just that you should optimize them. This means using the right file extensions, ensuring the photos are an appropriate size and run them all through optimization software. Once you take these steps, your site will look the same, only it should load much faster.
Make Use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Any way you slice it, getting a lot of visitors on your site can slow it down or even cause it to crash. This comes from too many requests that your bandwidth simply can’t handle, and will freeze, stall or slow down as a result. Thankfully, a content delivery network (CDN) can help. Many companies around the world can provide a number of different CDNs to meet your needs.
CDNs essentially function by spreading out the hosting of your files over a worldwide network. This large spread of bandwidth is great for load reduction, and will keep your site loading quickly, even if a lot of people are visiting it. Without a CDN, all server requests are going to the same server, which can be a lot to handle. CDNs and other similar technologies can also help protect your site and company from DDoS attacks and other potential issues.
Have a Simple Site Design
When it comes to web design, there are literally hundreds of different options for individuals and businesses alike. If your concern is increasing load times, your goal should be to make your site as simple as possible. See, the more different elements (such as CSS, Javascript, files and more) that your site has, the more HTTP requests must be made.
If you reduce these elements in number or size, less requests will be made and the site will load faster. In addition to helping your site load faster, a good and simple site design can potentially keep people on your site longer. Nothing can get rid of a potential customer than a confusing or unorganized website. Improving customer experience is incredibly important, and having a simple site (while reducing load times) can do just that.
In conclusion, we hope that this article has been able to help you improve the loading time of your site. Even improving loading time by a second or two can have a giant impact on how many people stay on your site.
