At one point or another everyone experiences a slow website. Whether you’re shopping online, searching for an article, or even testing your own website, you probably know what it’s like to wait forever for a page to load, it’s infuriating. Website speed is crucial as we live in a time where everything happens seemingly in an instant, and no one has the patience to wait on a website to load. Therefore you must take extra care that your website is fast enough to compete with others. Luckily, there are a few tools that are guaranteed to give you a faster website and a leg up on any competition.
Enable compression
Compression is what allows your site to produce smaller sized files, and therefore allows them to load faster. Enabling gzip compression for your website is a must as it is standard practice for many websites and companies. If you don’t have gzip compression enabled, your website is probably slower than your competitors. Enabling gzip compression is relatively easy and there are plenty of tools to help get the job done. Some of the more common ways to enable compression include .htaccess, Apache, Nginx, and Litespeed web servers.
Choose the right CDN
Another means of creating a faster website would be to make sure you have the correct content delivery network or CDN. Not all CDN’s deliver the same services, and so it is important to make sure that you have one that fits your specific needs. However, while your website may have specific needs, there are common factors to consider such as:
- Latency
- Throughput
- Availability
- Global Scale
- Security
- Actionable Analytics
Choosing the right CDN is guaranteed to give you a faster website. So be sure to take all factors into consideration before making a decision.
Caching done for each browser or just across the board generic
Caching is temporarily storing information that is commonly accessed on your website. This cache of information sits ready to be accessed by individuals on your site. This means that when that information is needed, your site doesn’t have to search the internet for the relevant information. It is right there ready to be accessed.
Image optimization
One mistake many websites make is having images that are much larger than they need to be. Larger images can slow your website down, but so can having them in the wrong format. Be sure that you know whether to use PNGs or JPEGs and that your images are compressed for the web. Improper image formatting will slow your site speed down, but you can easily optimize your images for a faster website.
Reach out to a developer/professional
Attempting to develop a faster website can often be overwhelming for some individuals. Thankfully, there are professionals and companies who make it their mission to help make faster websites. Reaching out to a company that specializes in this area can give you the confidence that your mobile and desktop speed are on par with your competition and that everything is how it should be. Websites are the lifeblood for many companies, and at the end of the day, it’s best to have a professional help maintain it. Professionals also have the ability to take website work to the next level and can apply tools and methods that you may not otherwise have access to.
We want to help!
Site Espresso is a service of Effect Web Agency, a boutique web design and development company based in Granger, Indiana. Our company has been helping clients design websites and grow website traffic for 15 years. We are currently the highest rated web agency in Northern Indiana. See what our clients say on our Effect site. You can also check out our reviews on Google. We have a team of 8 web specialists, focused on helping clients achieve real-world goals through their websites
