As we know, Google’s core principle is: “Focus on the user and all else will follow.” This highlights Google’s commitment to providing positive user experiences, and one of the most critical yet often overlooked aspects of this is website page speed. Web performance directly impacts user experience, and if your site takes too long to load, you risk losing not only visitors but also potential customers. Research shows that users begin to drop off if a page takes more than 4 seconds to load, and Google itself recommends a load time of 3 seconds or less.
Page speed isn’t just about user satisfaction; it also affects your website’s search rankings. Google now factors website speed into its SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), making it essential to optimise every aspect of your site’s performance. Every millisecond and kilobyte matters.
Our Website Speed Optimisation Packages
At NW Design, we offer affordable Website Speed Optimisation packages that can significantly improve your site’s load times, enhancing the browsing experience for your users. Below are just a few of the general techniques we use to boost website performance:
- Defer Loading Content: Load key content first and defer non-essential elements to improve speed.
- Use External JS and CSS Files: Reduces page load by minimising inline code.
- Implement Caching Systems: Store frequently accessed content to avoid unnecessary data retrieval.
- Avoid Resizing Images in HTML: Upload images that are already optimised to the correct dimensions.
- Stop Using Images to Display Text: Use CSS for text display to reduce image load times.
- Optimise Image Sizes: Choose the right file formats (e.g. JPEGs for photos, PNGs for images with transparent backgrounds).
- Clean Up Code: Tidy up your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to remove redundancies.
- Load JavaScript Last: Defer JavaScript loading to ensure the essential content appears first.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): Distribute your content globally for faster load times across different regions.
- Optimise Web Caching: Improve caching strategies to reduce server requests and enhance performance.
Website Speed Optimisation Conclusion
With more users now accessing websites via tablets and mobile phones, it’s more important than ever to optimise your site’s speed. A faster website not only provides a better user experience but can also save you money by reducing server bandwidth usage, potentially allowing you to downgrade your hosting package. Optimising page speed benefits both your users and your bottom line.
If you’re ready to enhance your website’s performance, give us a call today for free help and advice at 0161 327 2131.
