5 Tips to Make Your Website Faster

BlueBicycle

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How often do you abandon a page when it takes too long to load?  Chances are, that your visitors and readers are doing the same.  People expect a fast user experience these days when they go online, and when they don’t get it, they often switch to another web page.  
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The way we consume media has changed dramatically.  Most online searches are done by smart phones these days, and often while doing other chores.  Which means, no one has the time or patience to wait for a slow page to load.
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Page Speed is an Important Google Ranking Factor.
Google does consider site speed as important, and takes into account how quickly a page loads. It’s part of Google’s ranking algorithm for both desktop and mobile. Having a better-optimized page will help deliver better rankings. While fast load times won’t necessarily bring your website to a #1 ranking, they can give your site an advantage. If two sites have equal authority and relevance, Page Speed may be the deciding factor that pushes one site ahead of the other in the organic rankings.

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How You Can Test Your Website’s Speed for Free?
Here are just five of many possibilities, with a test / recommendation example of #1 below:

1. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

2. http://gtmetrix.com/

3. http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

4. http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/

5. http://www.webpagetest.org/

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The following shows a recommendations example for a website. After each critical item, Google and other providers show “how to fix it” for both, mobile and desktop / laptop:

60 / 100 Speed for Mobile
Should Fix:
Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content
Leverage browser caching
Optimize images

Consider Fixing:
Reduce server response time
Minify JavaScript
Minify CSS
Minify HTML
Enable compression

2 Passed Rules
92 / 100 User Experience
Consider Fixing:
Size tap targets appropriately
Size content to viewport

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There are Several Reasons for Slow Web Pages, the Most Common are:

  • Slow hosting service
  • Not optimized images (I am guilty of this : )
  • Plug-in overload (especially FB like-buttons)
  • External media, such as videos or slide shows
  • Flash content
  • Too many ads
  • Too large files
  • Extensive code

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How to Improve Your Website’s Speed?
Yahoo!’s Performance team has identified 34 rules that affect web page performance. Click on each of their performance rule page to see the details.  A fantastic resource for every web developer (and advanced blogger), and I highly recommend to go through all the details, especially the image improvement section.

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 The many benefits of improved page speed makes it very easy to justify the changes.  Take the time to analyze your page speed scores.  The faster a web page loads, the more satisfied your visitors will be.  Show your webmaster the results of these (free) tests for your website and let him / her fix it.   Get a better Search Engine ranking and more traffic!

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