Intro
Don’t you hate searching for something on Google only to find out that the website that seems to have the best answer for your question takes forever to load. This is an issue that many people face, and many people have made a living by solving it, but there are steps you can take to stop this issue before it becomes a situation where you need to hire someone to fix it for you. Following these steps will help your customers enjoy your website more and will even help bump your website closer to the top of Google searches.
How bad is bad
So how bad is bad? We think of it as a website being bad because it loads slowly but why is this? And at what point do customers get bored of waiting? Well this issue has come from the expansion of the internet of course. If you’ve got instant access to everything at all times then why should you wait for what seems like an eternity to find out why a Raven is like a Writing Desk? Of course with so much information out there you can understand why it’s ok to need to wait for your answer, but the amount of information it there isn’t the issue; it just matters what you do with it. Google pride themselves on having the largest cache of information available online, which can be searched through in a fraction of a second. This is definitely a well deserved brag, and a lesson for us to learn from. In a world full of information, and users wanting to know the answers in less than 2 seconds, you need to be able to beat your opponent’s to the punch. Yes that is how fast it takes to get bored of waiting for a website, only 2 seconds! So let’s talk about some of the tricks and tools you can use to keep your website running fast.
Image sizes
Images are one of the biggest issues with a website, they can be one of the slowest loading assets on a page but play a vital role in how people enjoy your website. This means that if you’ve got images which aren’t the right size for their purpose or you’ve got a lot of them on one page it’s going to take a while for the user to be able to see the website. Let’s consider how an image might affect the speed. When a user clicks on the link to your website your computer requests the website from another computer, your server. When your server response it will send the main file for the page they’re currently on and then check if it needs to find anything else. The first issue arrives when the files are being sent. If your images are too big for their purpose you’re going to be sending a bigger file than is necessary, meaning more time will be taken sending the file. When it’s received it needs to put it on screen which again takes more time if the image is too big for it’s purpose. On the other hand if your image is too small then your customers are going to see blurry images, so you need to find the best balance between the two options. But good news, is you’re using a tool such as WordPress or Wix or you’ve hired a developer they will handle this automatically, you won’t need to worry about the best size for you images because they will resize images to fit perfectly on your screen.
Purging unused data
Purging your unused website content isn’t something that is too important for the speed but it will help keep you organised and can help keep it faster in the long run. Say you’ve got a lot of images on your server that aren’t being used or your database has a lot of content on it that doesn’t need to be there. These things will eventually clog up your website and make it slow. It’s best to keep on top of tasks like these so you won’t have to worry as much at a later date. Again these things are solvable with a service like the ones I’ve mentioned already, you can find plugins that can automate these tasks so you don’t have to buy a diary just to keep track of when to do these tasks.
Finding the right hosting company
Ok this one might sound a little techy but finding the right company to host your website is vital for your website’s speed. The biggest issues with not having the decent hosting is that you can end up with a slow server. This just means your users have to wait longer to get the website returned to them, making it more likely that they will skip out on reading what you have to say. Don’t let this discourage you though, there are plenty of articles out there describing good places to host your website and if you’re working with something such as WordPress or a developer they will be able to suggest a good place to host it. When it comes to this section, talking to a ‘know-it-all’ is the best option.
Summary
To summarise this section up let’s look at the things you can do to make sure your website is running fast:
- Make sure your images are the correct size
- Keep on top of cleaning out unused data
- Talk to a professional about other little ways you can keep your website on the top of people’s search
The best way by far is to speak to someone who can advise you on where you can improve with your website because there may be a multitude os reasons your site might run slow. If you do want to check on it send me a message with a link to your website and I’ll get right back to you with my ideas so we can have a chat about the solutions.
Bibliography
- Photo by Markus Spiske
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