The website’s loading speed sets your first impression. No matter how much effort you pour into building an aesthetically pleasing site with easy functionality, if your site is unable to load in a short time, it will all be in vain. Paid marketing, social media, design, or content are important to ensure your digital marketing success, but the website’s speed plays an equivalent role too which is mostly overlooked. 

Here is why it is so important to optimize website speed.

Three reasons why website speed plays a vital role in digital marketing

1. Improves conversion rates:

Quick loading website is your key to lower bounce rates. People tend to rely more on sites that load quickly. It creates a professional impression. The visitor expects your site to load within 3 seconds and this gives you an opportunity to create a good brand perception. You don’t want your special first-time visitor to have a bad user experience and leave the site annoyed. So, invest in optimizing the speed and watch your conversion rates grow.

2. Improves ranking on google:

Google considers fast-loading sites an affirmative ranking factor. With Google’s aim to maintain relevancy and quality on sites, quick website speed sits just right with it. Google simply improves your site’s visibility and makes it easier for potential customers to discover. 

3. Improves conversion rates:

According to an estimate, a 1-second delay in loading the site can cost you a 7% reduction in conversion. Google may even penalize your site as it does with any other low-speed page. When a site is fast loading, it will ensure a good user experience and reflect professionalism which will in return increase your conversion rate!

What makes your site load slower than the rest?

Slow website speed can be due to:

• Poor image optimization
• Issues in hosting
• Unsupported fonts
• Complicated themes
• Visuals used from another site
• File size magnification
• Inefficient CSS

And the list goes on!

How to optimize your website’s speed?

To fix your loading speed, this is what you can do!

Image optimization:

For image optimization, start by using concise and direct image names. Which means, using names that are descriptive. Use appropriate alt attributes and don’t overstuff it with keywords!

Choose dimensions wisely. It’s better to use small images and offer an option to view them in large on a pop-up page. Decreasing the image file size can also aid in increasing website speed. Tools like adobe help in editing images and compressing them.

Lastly, choose the right format for your picture. Mostly JPEGs are considered the best format.

Check your current speed:

There are plenty of online tests available that assist you with checking your site’s performance, including site speed. Visit them and discover where you lack.

Google Pagespeed Insights is one such helpful test that helps you by giving a green signal on all the pages with good speed and reasons behind pages that are not performing very well.

“What gets measured gets improved.” – Peter Drucker

Technical SEO:

To resolve the issues in hosting, improve your technical SEO by looking out for factors such as API usage and server speed. Technical SEO is not visible to viewers and exists behind the curtains.

Group JAVA scripts and CSS files:

Grouping JAVA scripts in a single file, the same as CSS files, will help to reduce HTTPS requests. These requests are by each visitor’s browsers and lead to slowing down your website speed. So, reducing these requests will surely amp up your site’s speed.

Final thoughts:

The expectation barrier of a typical user is estimated to be 3 seconds, to ensure you are meeting the criteria, critically evaluate your site. Test its current speed and start optimizing. 

To get a professional’s opinion on your website, click on this link and contact us. https://strategyinn.com/

We offer a FREE website audit to help you with the website performance breakdown. It’s a limited-time offer so make sure to check it out!