No one likes a slow website. That is just as true of Google as with individual visitors, so sites that load slowly will pay the price in more ways than one.

Google, in fact, views loading speed as one of the most significant determinants of a given page’s value to its users. Fortunately, there are some effective ways to speed up any website so as to place higher in the search results rankings and keep visitors happy.

Simple Tricks Help Websites Load Faster     

The discipline of search engine optimization, or SEO, is quite a wide-ranging one, but a few of the included techniques consistently rank as the most effective and accessible. As those who click here to see will learn, for example, building more links to web pages is an easy and effective way to get them ranking higher in Google’s search results.

Another particularly simple SEO tactic is to improve the loading speed of any website which lags even a little. Seven specific tricks which most often help are:

  • Compressing images. As of 2017, the average web page weighed in at around 3 megabytes. It takes time to move that much data, and images are often the primary culprits. Ditching bulky image formats like BMP in favour of svelter ones like PNG and GIF can help.
  • Simplifying CSS. One of CSS is how HTML elements inherit styles from their parents. Some sites, though, overdo it with CSS and build that slow download times. In many cases, the same stylistic effects will be achievable with less bloat.
  • Minifying JavaScript. Many websites today pull in vast amounts of JavaScript in the form of supporting libraries. All those characters of code add up, but the problem can be addressed. Widely adopted tools like Minify can be used to turn human-readable variable and function names into shorter ones that make just as much sense to computers.
  • Cutting back on plugins. The popular content management system WordPress sits in a vast ecosystem of plugins that enhance its functionality. Add too many of these, though, and a site will slow down.
  • Making more use of static assets. A single query of a database can add a second or more to a page’s loading time. Serving up static assets like pre-populated HTML files is inevitably faster.
  • Using a content delivery network (CDN). Some pages load slowly because of where they are hosted geographically. A CDN that puts resources closer to where users are visiting from can speed things up considerably.
  • Upgrading the server. Whether with a virtual private server, cloud-provisioned hosting, or old-fashioned rack-mounted equipment, it can pay to upgrade. Having more memory or a faster form of storage will allow a server to send data more quickly.

Increasing Website Speed Often Pays Off     

Simple tactics like these can be used to boost the loading speed and overall responsiveness of many websites. Doing so will often mean receiving more traffic from Google and also making visitors happier.

The virtuous circle that results can even turn a formerly moribund website into a hot property all on its own. Given how easy it often is to improve the loading speed of websites, looking into the options will quite frequently pay off.