9 speedy solutions to improve your page loading time

Article topics

1. Optimise your images
2. Review your page code
3. Avoid unnecessary redirects
4. Choose a reliable hosting provider
5. Implement lazy loading
6. Use a content delivery network
7. Monitor your plugins and extensions
8. Allow browser caching
9. Reduce the impact of third-party tools

There’s nothing more annoying than visiting a website and waiting for ages while the page loads.

A slow-loading page on your website not only frustrates customers but can also have a negative impact on your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts.

The good news is that there are things you can do to make your pages load more quickly, even if you don’t know much about technical SEO!

Here are nine simple ways you can speed up your site.

1. Optimise your images

Beautiful images can make your web page more appealing, but if they’re too big, they can affect your site speed.

Large images need more storage space and take longer to load, which can lead to a poor user experience (UX) for your website visitors. Optimising your images and ensuring they’re the correct size can make a massive difference.

Here are our top tips for optimising your website images:

• Compress your images to reduce their file size before you add them to your site. Tools like iLoveIMG and TinyPNG let you compress images in bulk. Alternatively, tools like Smush and Imagify automatically compress your images when you upload them to your WordPress/WooCommerce site
• Choose the correct file format. For example:

  • GIFs are best for animations
  • JPEGs are best for photos
  • PNGs are best for logos and icons
  • WebP files are highly compressed, but older browsers may not support them
• Use the right image dimensions. If you need a 300 x 300 image, you don’t need to upload a 5000 x 5000 file

You can also implement lazy loading, which we’ll talk about later.

2. Review your page code

Each page on your website has code behind it. This code determines how your page looks, its features, and how other websites interpret your content.

However, inefficiently written code can take more time for web browsers to read and understand, which can mean a slower loading time.

Poorly organised code can mean a browser must download and process specific resources before it can start displaying the visible part of a page (this is known as ‘render blocking’).

Cleaning up your code means your pages will load faster. Here are our top tips:

• Minify your code. This removes all unnecessary characters without altering the functionality of your page. You can do this with tools like Minify
• Compress your code. You can use tools like Gzip to compress your code on the server, where it will be decompressed by a visitor’s browser
• Split your code. By breaking your code down into chunks, you can make it so a visitor’s browser only downloads what is needed
• Review your code. Check your code to remove elements you don’t need, as well as repeated elements

3. Avoid unnecessary redirects

Page redirects automatically send website visitors to an alternative page on your website. For example, if you change the URL of a page, you can direct site visitors to the new URL.

While page redirects are useful, they can cause page loading issues if misused.

A redirect chain takes place when there are multiple redirects between the initial URL and the final URL. So page A redirects to page B, which redirects to page C, and so on.

Each redirect means an additional server request, meaning a longer page load time.

A page with 15 redirects takes 109% longer to load than a page with just one.

The easiest way to avoid excessive redirects is to regularly review your redirects and remove any that aren’t necessary. What’s My DNS has a handy redirect checker that makes it easy to see if there are any chains in play on your site.

4. Choose a reliable hosting provider

Your hosting provider (the company that stores and delivers your website) can significantly affect your page loading speed.

If a provider has insufficient bandwidth, infrastructure issues, or slow servers, this can affect your loading times, even if you’ve optimised your website as much as possible.

The plan you choose can also have an impact on your site speed. For example, with shared hosting, resources are shared with other businesses, while with dedicated hosting, you get a server all to yourself.

When choosing a hosting provider, read reviews and ask your friends and colleagues for their thoughts. Also consider where you see your business in the future – you want a hosting provider that scales with you.

5. Implement lazy loading

Lazy loading is when you set your page up so elements only load when they are needed.

For example, you can use lazy loading so images and videos at the top of the page appear first and the images and videos at the bottom of the page show when a page visitor scrolls down.

As a result, your page loads more quickly, as browsers only need to load a small part of the webpage at a time.

Lazy loading works best if you have a lot of images on your page or use infinite scrolling. However it can affect your SEO if you don’t implement it properly. This is because if key elements aren’t displayed, the search engines can’t crawl and index them.

Some platforms (like WordPress/WooCommerce) offer lazy loading by default. Other platforms let you add it through an extension or plugin, or through coding.

6. Use a content delivery network

Let’s say you operate a website with a UK-based server. Your page may take 2.5 seconds to load for a customer in London and 3.5 seconds to load for a customer in San Francisco. This is because your page data has to travel a further distance.

A second may not sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it can make all of the difference when it comes to page loading time.

By implementing a content delivery network (CDN), you can speed up the loading process for site visitors in other countries.

A CDN is a network of servers (called Points of Presence, or PoPs) distributed across the world. When a user requests content, the CDN delivers it from the PoP nearest to them, meaning a faster loading time.

7. Monitor your plugins and extensions

If you use a platform like WordPress/WooCommerce or Shopify, you can download plugins and extensions that add extra functionality to your web pages.

However, downloading extensions you don’t use, or using low-quality plugins, may affect your site speed. These plugins may have poorly optimised or redundant code, or run a large number of database queries, which can slow your pages down.

Here are our top tips for keeping tabs on your plugins and extensions:

• Deactivate your plugins and run a site speed test to see if they affect your page loading times
• Remove any plugins and extensions you no longer use
• Evaluate if you need all the plugins you have installed. For example, you may have an all-in-one plugin for SEO, but only use a small proportion of the features. Alternatively, you may have two plugins that perform the same task
• Read the user reviews before you download new extensions – this may give you an insight into whether the extensions affect site speed
• Keep your installed plugins and extensions up to date – developers often release updates that improve performance

8. Allow browser caching

If you find people regularly visit your website, enabling browser caching can help speed up their return visits.

When someone first visits your website, their browser downloads all the relevant elements and stores them temporarily in a storage area called a cache.

When they revisit your site, if the elements are still relevant, the browser loads them directly from its cache, rather than downloading them from your server. This means page visitors can view your page more quickly.

Of course, if you allow browser caching, it’s essential to have a solid caching policy in place to ensure your site visitors always see up-to-date content. You don’t want prospective customers to click on a photo of a product only to find you no longer stock it!

9. Reduce the impact of third-party tools

You may use some tools created by other businesses to manage functionality on your website. For example, Google Analytics, payment service providers like Stripe or PayPal, or live chat tools like Facebook Messenger or Tidio.

While these tools offer valuable additional features to both you and your customers, they can affect your page performance.

Not only do these tools mean more server requests, but they’re wholly dependent on the responsiveness of the third-party providers’ servers. Any downtime or issues on their end can mean problems for you.

There are some things you can do to reduce the risk of third-party tools affecting your site speed:

• Load non-essential tools after the main content on your page has loaded
• Use a tag management system like Google Tag Manager to keep an eye on all your tools and scripts from one place
• While server-side tagging is harder to implement and more expensive, it means less code on your pages, which can speed up your site
• Research tools to see how they perform, and monitor your tools to see how they affect page load times

Page loading time FAQ

What is page load speed?

Page load speed is the amount of time it takes for all the elements on an individual website page to completely load.

By elements, we mean everything from your images to your call-to-action buttons.

Why is page loading time so important?

Page loading time is a critical factor in the UX you offer on your website. A slow-loading page can frustrate visitors, potentially meaning they leave your site.

According to BigCommerce, a one-second delay in page load time can mean 7% fewer conversions and 11% fewer page views.

Does page loading time affect your search engine ranking?

Yes. How quickly (or slowly) your page loads can affect where you rank in the search engines.

Google uses a suite of metrics called the Core Web Vitals to determine your page performance, which in turn can affect your search engine presence. Page load speed is a large part of the Core Web Vitals.

It’s important to remember that while page speed can affect your page rankings, other ranking factors can affect your SEO too. Even if your page loads quickly, low-quality, untrustworthy content can have a negative impact on your search engine presence.

There’s an upcoming article about core web vitals that would be good to link to here. Alternatively, link here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9205520?hl=enthreats.

What is the optimal page loading time?

In our experience, the ideal page loading time is under three seconds.

However, bear in mind that your target audience may affect your ideal page loading time, with millennials and Gen Z preferring faster-loading content. 43% of young adults say they won’t recommend a business with a slow-loading website to others.

What is the maximum image size for optimal page speed?

It depends on the dimensions of your image and the purpose. For example, you will need a relatively high-resolution background photo, while you can get away with a much smaller client logo on your homepage.

We recommend that images don’t exceed 2MB.

Why is page loading time different on mobile than it is on desktop?

While mobile devices have become more advanced over the years, they still don’t have the processing power and memory that desktop devices do. Not only this, but mobile devices may use mobile data rather than WiFi, which can be slower.

This means the same page may load more slowly on a mobile phone or tablet than on a desktop computer or laptop.

How can you check your page loading time?

There are lots of page speed checkers online. The easiest one to use is Pingdom, which gives your page a performance grade and recommends how you can improve your page speed. You can also test your page speed from different countries and cities.

Google PageSpeed Insights is more technical, but it provides a more detailed analysis of how to improve your page experience.

How can you improve your page loading time?

You can make your pages load more quickly by:

1. Optimising your page images – using the right format and dimensions and compressing your images before you upload them
2. Analysing your page code – removing redundant and repeated code makes it easier for a visitor’s browser to understand your page content
3. Identifying and removing any redirect chains – this is when a redirected URL leads to another redirected URL
4. Selecting a reliable hosting provider – checking reviews and testimonials can help you make the right choice
5. Setting up lazy loading – this is when elements (like images) only load when they are required
6. Using a content delivery network (CDN) so site visitors in other countries can view your pages faster
7. Reviewing your website’s plugins and extensions to see if you need them
8. Implementing browser caching so frequent visitors don’t have to reload the same assets each time they view your website
9. Auditing the third-party tools you use on your website to ensure they run smoothly and don’t cause any issues

Ready… Set… Let’s boost your page speed!

Improving your page speed load time has many benefits for your business. It keeps prospective customers happy, increases the odds of them converting, and can also boost your search engine rankings.

One final tip from us – don’t forget to regularly check your page load speed. Adding new elements to a page over time can cause your loading times to creep up.

Make a habit of testing your page loading times every quarter or if you add significant new elements to your pages.