When the question of site performance arises, page speed is of considerable importance. Until and unless you understand how to increase website speed, specifically, the factors that influence it, you may find it difficult to improve. If the objective is to reduce the bounce rate and enhance user engagement, it is vital that the web page loads quickly. Any site that is optimised for speed not only enhances the user experience but also boosts your search engine rankings.
The ways by which you can improve the page loading speed
It is of considerable importance that you are aware of how to increase website speed. The time is right to improve the key metric. With that in mind, let us figure out how to make pages load faster.
The choice of a performance-optimised hosting solution
The hosting provider that you choose plays an important role in website management and performance. This includes page speed and how to make website load faster. One of the mistakes you make is opting for mediocre hosting at a lower monthly rate.
Cheap hosting translates to poor performance. This means an unloaded server is sharing multiple resources that can have an impact on your page loading times. There are a few performance-focused hosting solutions that you may use that are designed for speed.
Optimise and compress the images.
Images enhance the appearance of the web pages and increase the quality of the content. But large images can delay loading times. Hence, one of the easiest ways to optimize page load speed is to compress and optimize the images. This may include changing the file formats and enabling lazy loading.
When you reduce the image file sizes, you reduce the weight, offering optimum solutions on how to speed up a website. Numerous types of image optimisation plugins exist that you can use for this purpose. After installation and activation, the plugin will automatically resize and compress the photos.
Reduction of redirects
If there are too many direct links on your website, it can lead to slow loading times. Every time a page reloads and redirects to a different location, the HTTP request and response processes take longer. Though in some cases, such a situation is warranted if you are moving over to a new domain.
With WordPress, there are a few techniques to reduce redirection. One approach is to refrain from adding any extras while developing internal links or other menus.
Cache the web pages.
If you are wondering how to increase website speed, then caching is a better option. It stores copies of your website files, trims down the work needed for a server, and serves a web page to the visitor’s browser. There are numerous ways in which you can cache your pages and this guide on how to speed up a website.
There is an option to use a catch plugin like W3 Total Cache, which is a free plugin that makes caching web pages quick and easy. After installing and activating it, you simply need to navigate to General Settings, Page Cache, and click on the enable option. You may also take advantage of the WP 3 socket, which is a powerful cache plugin.
Enabling browser caching
There is another form of caching known as browser caching that you may be leveraged on how to speed up a website. This technique enables the browser to store a variety of information, including images, stylesheets, and JavaScript files. So, there is no need to reload the entire page every time you visit it.
It is similar to W3 total cache. WP Rocket is a powerful cache plugin that can be used on WordPress sites. It makes use of cache pre-loading and page caching to increase the speed of your web pages.
Use defer loading and asynchronous loading for your CSS and JavaScript files.
The site is made from JavaScript and CSS files. Synchronous JavaScript page time loading indicates that the files load one at a time, and with asynchronous loading, multiple files are known to load at the same time. Adopting such a strategy involves eliminating render-blocking resources.
Use WP Rocket if you want to go the simple route. Three practical methods to optimise JavaScript and CSS files are provided on the page.. There is a need to enable these options because the plugin will take care of the file optimisation.
Minimise JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.
Optimising the way in which your files load contributes to better page loading speeds. On similar lines, you can magnify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML code. This would involve removing unnecessary spaces and comments to reduce the size of the files.
When you decrease the size of the files, it becomes easier to combine them. The result is cleaner code and a web page that loads faster. But combining each line of the code is not exactly sufficient. Rather, it is possible to identify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML code with a free plugin like Autotomize. This makes it easy to aggregate the scripts and styles accordingly.
Working towards a content delivery module
A CDN, or content delivery network, is also referred to as a content distribution network. It is a network of servers that improves page loading speed. It works in place of your host. Apart from the server that hosts a primary site, it may leverage a CDN to distribute copies of the site’s file among the strategically chosen data centres.
This is going to enhance performance by reducing the distance data requests have to travel between host servers and the browser. There are a variety of CDN options from which you can choose. One of them is opting for a host that provides a CDN that you can enable directly from the dashboard.
Eradicate the unnecessary plugins.
All the plugins created are not equal. If there are too many plugins on your site, it will unnecessarily bloat and slow down the speed. Even plugins that are outdated and not well maintained could pose security threats. It is going to lead to compatibility issues that hamper performance.
Hence, it is better to reduce the number of plugins that you use on your website. An easy way to do it is to disable or delete the plugins that you are not currently using. At the same time, it is suggested that you review the plugins that are installed to understand whether they are necessary or not.
To conclude, these are a few ways that provide insights on how to speed up a website. Using a CDN and caching the pages are just the beginning of the installation of plugins that will optimize the loading of scripts and images and minimize the site files.
Remember, every second your web page takes to load increases the chances that visitors will leave your website. So the focus has to be on how to increase website speed so that the users have a great experience.