Speeding Up Websites

This article will discuss some of the best ways you can speed up and improve the performance of your website. Google and other search engines will rank faster websites higher as they provide a better user experience.

Responsive images

All images should be responsive. This means images used throughout the site are of the right size so that you're not loading high resolution photos or videos onto small devices that won't see any benefit from them. We use some very extensive tools to dynamically resize images as you upload them, so the optimal image is always used.

GZIP compression

Your website should be hosted on a server with GZIP compression. This optimises your website files to be compressed and minified so that only a minimal amount of data needs to be sent to the website visitors. We host all of our websites with GZIP compression enabled.

Asynchronous loading

Asynchronous loading is the method of allowing your JavaScript and CSS files to load asynchronously, at the same time, rather than synchronously one after the other. This can speed up your website load time as the browser can go from top to bottom through your website quicker and load core libraries first. This is something a web developer should be able to help with, and we use this method on all of our sites.

Why is a fast website important?

Higher conversion rates

A faster load time results in a better conversion rate and a higher retention of customers. A survey found that 79% of customers would not return to a website with poor performance. Users expect fast and instant results; they don't want to wait for a slow page to load, or for large images to slowly pop up.

Better visibility

Google and other search engines use your website's load time as a contributing factor to how they rank your site in search results or PPC campaigns. Using a tool such as Google PageSpeed Insights will help you see how well your website is optimised.