How to speed up site loading? Relevance and main ways

Website loading speed is an important factor that affects SEO promotion, sales, and overall user comfort. When visiting a website, a search engine not only assesses the relevance of the content but also the user-friendliness. Only if the site is user-friendly will it be eligible for higher rankings.

As you can see, the importance of fast website loading for SEO and sales cannot be overstated. Let’s take a closer look at what website loading speed is, how to test it, and the main ways to improve it.

Website Loading Speed – What Is It and Why Is It So Important?

Reducing loading time is important because it directly affects user behavior, increases brand loyalty, and influences search engine rankings. Google’s search engine “dislikes” slow websites, so it persistently lowers their search rankings.

To better understand the relevance of fast website loading, think about your personal experience. It’s much more comfortable to navigate a website and explore product catalogs when the loading time is 1-2 seconds. If each page takes 5-10 seconds to load, visitors will simply want to leave. Website loading speed affects the following metrics:

• Conversion: If the first experience with a website is unsuccessful, 45% to 87% of all users will not return. The path from a product to the shopping cart should be fast and comfortable.
• Page Indexing: The faster a website’s servers deliver content to the search engine’s crawler, the more websites it can process. If web page loading is slow, it will take more time for the site to be fully indexed.
• Ranking Position: In 2018, Google incorporated website loading speed into the list of metrics considered for ranking websites. If there is a failure, it will negatively impact rankings.

In addition, behavioral factors are becoming increasingly important – the convenience of user interaction with the site is assessed.

How Fast Should a Website Page Load?

Geography can also affect loading speed. For instance, if you are in Portugal and loading a website with a server in Ukraine, the loading time may be longer compared to a visitor from Ukraine. There’s a general rule for all websites – the content block on the desktop version should load in no more than 2.5 seconds, and the mobile version should load in under 3 seconds.

And this is despite research back in 2012 showing that people notice even a 4-millisecond increase in website loading speed. Any seller would choose a faster loading site, so website optimization is a must.

How to Test Website Loading Speed?

Before starting the optimization process, you need to identify what is slowing down your website and measure its loading speed. Special tools have been developed for this purpose.

Google PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights is a service from Google that allows you to check the loading speed on both desktop and mobile versions. It also provides recommendations on how to improve website performance. Each parameter is presented with a value and an explanation of its significance.

Pingdom

Pingdom is a special service that simulates speed tests from various geographical locations: America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and more. You receive a detailed report with results and recommendations, which can be downloaded in .json format. The analysis is based on the size and speed of content loading, depending on its type: font styles, images, CSS, JavaScript.

GTmetrix

GTmetrix is a service that visualizes page loading – it shows you where the content is at a specific point in time during loading. You get a comprehensive report with recommendations for both Yahoo and Google. There’s also a “History” section where you can track how the actions taken have influenced loading speed.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a versatile tool that allows you to analyze website issues. Importantly, Google’s tool shows the real loading speed for specific users. You can see detailed information on redirect speed, server response, and resource performance. As a result, you’ll know precisely what needs to be replaced and optimized.

Ways to Speed Up Website Loading

1. Host Replacement or Optimization.
   Hosting performance is one of the main reasons for slow website loading speeds during initial contact, content loading index, time to load for initial interaction, and more.
   In other words, if there is a lack of system resources on the hosting (disk space, CPU, or processing power), fast loading will be impossible. There are two options here: migrate the website to a new hosting provider or purchase an expensive package with increased resources.
2. Reducing the Number of HTTP Requests.
   HTTP requests are sent to all scripts, images, CSS files, Flash, etc. Browsers can load up to 2 components of a page from a single hosting source. By reducing the number of loaded elements, you can improve website performance and decrease loading times. You can reduce HTTP requests in the following ways: combine multiple images into a single CSS sprite, merge JavaScript and CSS files into one, minimize the use of plugins and scripts, and use inline images in the stylesheet via URL schemes.

This can significantly improve website loading speed.

3. Optimizing the Order of CSS and JavaScript.
   To ensure fast loading, CSS files are placed at the top of the page’s code, while JavaScript files are positioned below. This helps static content load faster, followed by dynamic content.
   In addition to proper placement, it is highly recommended to reduce the sizes of these files, which will further speed up page loading. This can be done by removing unnecessary characters, line breaks, comments, etc. Special services like JSCompress or Refresh-SF can be used for this purpose, allowing you to compress code.
4. Using Gzip Compression.
   To minimize the number of requests sent from the browser to the server and increase website loading speed, Gzip compression is employed. The HTTP/1.1 protocol specifies a method for compressing information using the Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate header.
   When the server detects this header in a request, it sends compressed data to the user. To activate compression, you can implement the corresponding code or simply install a Gzip plugin. The W3 Total Cache plugin is an excellent choice.
5. Utilize the flush Function.
   The flush function allows information to be displayed on a website as quickly as possible, piece by piece. While data from the request is transmitted to the browser, the open window gradually fills with site elements. It is recommended to set up flush at the very beginning of the source code, immediately after the header.
   Additionally, enabling parallel loading of CSS and JavaScript elements is advised. Together, these measures significantly accelerate loading on both mobile devices and computers.
6. Content Delivery Using CDN Networks.
   Content delivery networks (CDNs) place a website’s data on servers in various locations around the world. This is useful when a website is intended for users from multiple countries. All elements are loaded from the server closest to the user, minimizing data transfer.
   This is an excellent choice for speeding up websites as it minimizes the data transferred by the site visitor.
7. Using Nginx and Apache Servers for Hosting Information.
   Nginx is a high-speed server, while Apache is a high-capacity server. To increase website loading speed, you can host your site on these servers. They process and compress static information, remove unnecessary elements, clean up HTML attributes, and merge JS, CSS, and HTML files. All of these actions positively impact loading speed.
8. Cache Website Information.
   The ability to create caches of website pages allows you to store some information from web pages, including fonts, text, graphics, styles, images, and scripts, in the user’s browser. When a user revisits the site, these elements load much faster.
   The essence of caching technology is that elements are loaded from the user’s local cache. This not only reduces loading times but also saves bandwidth. Caching different parts of a page allows you to reduce the number of database requests for authenticated users.
9. Optimizing Images and Videos. Graphics elements and videos must be converted to the appropriate format for the website before being uploaded. This reduces the file size, positively impacting page loading speed. Common formats include PNG for logos, icons, illustrations, graphics, and diagrams; SVG for interface elements and vector logos; JPG for images and photos; MPEG4 for videos and animations. Numerous online services are available for file conversion, and CMS platforms offer plugins for video and image compression.
10. Database Optimization.
    As the volume of content grows, so does the size of the database, which can slow down website loading. To address this, regularly clean the database of unnecessary information, spam, test data, and copies. This can be done manually through phpMyAdmin, using hosting functions, or with specialized plugins.
11. OCSP Stapling.
    To accelerate content loading without the need for numerous browser requests, traffic encryption or secure transmission of user information can be achieved using OCSP Stapling technology. Importantly, this technology is compatible with all browsers and can be implemented on Apache and Nginx servers.
12. Minification.
    Minification is the process of reducing the size of the source code by removing unnecessary characters, spaces, comments, and other redundant elements. This speeds up website loading and optimizes the entire site without affecting its functionality. This approach reduces the amount of data to be processed and shortens the time it takes to load site elements.
13. Lazy Loading is a feature that defers the loading of images and other graphical elements until they are needed by the user. Depending on the settings, all content can be loaded and displayed as the page is scrolled or when the user interacts with the element.

Conclusion