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In this fast paced world we live in, no one wants to wait for anything. Consider fast food, breaking news via social media channels, 24/7 support, and online shopping on our mobiles. Your website is no different. Your visitors will not stay around and wait for your website or website pages to slowly open.  In addition, Google will penalise your ranking which will affect organic traffic. Google also thinks it’s important for your visitors to have a good experience, so your website loading speed should definitely be a part of your SEO strategy.

So, what can you do to improve your website’s loading speed?

Reliable Hosting

Server speed is all about how quickly your server responds to requests from your visitors to view the website. The quicker the server responds, the quicker the website pages will open. Make sure you have great hosting and if unsure, speak to your website developer. This will also include having a package that provides your site with adequate bandwidth and data.

Reduce the Size of Images

This is probably the single biggest reason that contributes to a slow website especially now that all the up-to-date websites are visual.  The most beautiful websites these days have lovely images including the banner images. PNGs are generally better for graphics (don’t go overboard on the number of different colours) while JPEGs are better for photographs. Then they need to be compressed for the web. Loading images that haven’t been resized for the web is not recommended.

File Compression – CSS, HTML & JavaScript files

Optimise your code by removing spaces, commas, and other unnecessary characters and this will help to increase your page speed. Also remove code comments, formatting, and unused code.

Install a Caching Program

Browsers can cache a lot of information so that when your visitors return to your site, the browser ‘remembers’ and doesn’t have to reload the entire page. If you have a WordPress site, there are several plug-ins that are good and will help your site to load quicker. Also check if you have an expiration date set for your cache and how long you want that information to be cached. A year is generally a good time unless your website design changes more often.

Incompatible Plug-ins

WordPress and other great CRMs means that people can now manage their own websites once they have been built. We see many websites that are having loading as well as other huge issues due to the number of plug-ins added and the fact that they can often be incompatible with each other.

Too Many Ads

Not only can too many ads be annoying to your visitors, but they can also slow down your loading time.

In conclusion, there are some great tools, free and paid, around the Internet to help you determine your speed time. If you think your site is performing badly, then try some of the tips above to improve your website speed. If not, your website developer will be happy to sort it all out for you.

HotsWots is a website design & development business with personal customer service that combines the latest designs with technical expertise and an understanding of online marketing. Whether you’re brand new to the web or your online presence needs an upgrade, we’re here help you take your next step. Contact us at info@hotswots.com today.

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Judith Shuttleworth

Judith Shuttleworth is the owner of HotsWots Digital and a Director of Open House ID, an app for real estate agents. We have a range of expertise in all aspects of digital marketing and provide personal customer service. Your success is our motivation.

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