By Jayne Schultheis — I feel the need ... the need for page speed. The speed at which your website loads can make or break your online presence. With users increasingly demanding instant access to information, slow page speeds can lead to lost opportunities and decreased engagement.

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In this article, we'll explore practical tools and techniques you can use to boost website performance and best practices for faster load times. Then, your website will be set to keep pace with user expectations, improve its search engine rankings, and stand out in a competitive market. Let's get started.

Why page speed matters

To put it simply, both Google and its users prefer sites that load faster and have a great UX design. Who wouldn't?

User experience and engagement

If a page takes too long, visitors are likely to leave before even seeing your content. According to a study by Google, 53% of mobile users abandon a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load — and that study was in 2016, when our attention spans were arguably, collectively, a bit longer. The longer a page takes to load, the higher the likelihood of having a high bounce rate. When a user has a positive experience and can quickly access content, they are more likely to engage with your site, browse additional pages, and convert into a valuable customer.

SEO and rankings

While the specific details of Google's search algorithm remain a mystery, speed is a confirmed page ranking factor. Google wants to deliver the best possible user experience in its search results, and slow pages are penalized. A faster-loading page has a better chance of ranking higher in search results, increasing its visibility. Google’s Core Web Vitals, which measure key aspects of user experience such as loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability, have made it even more important to focus on page speed optimization.

Mobile optimization

Since mobile traffic accounts for nearly 60% of global web traffic, optimizing for mobile speed is more important than ever. Mobile users, in particular, expect fast page loads, as they're typically on-the-go. Search engines like Google also use mobile-first indexing, which means the mobile version of your website will determine rankings. This has made many sites shift to responsive design, which involves building your site so it looks good and responds quickly on devices of any size — from smartphones to large monitors.

How to improve your site’s page speed

Website optimization through improved page speed may sound complex, but with the right strategies, you can significantly reduce load times and enhance user experience. Here are some actionable steps to optimize your site's page speed:

Compress and optimize images

Images are often the largest files on a website, and large, unoptimized images can drastically slow down page load times. To improve speed, make sure your images are properly compressed without sacrificing quality.

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• Use the right file formats. Use compressed file formats like JPEG for photographs and PNG for images with transparency. For modern websites, WebP is a newer image format that offers superior compression and quality.
• Resize images. Make sure images aren’t larger than they need to be. Displaying images at a reduced size but loading the full-sized versions can slow down load times. Resize images to the actual dimensions required for display.
• Use image compression tools. Tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim can help compress image files without losing quality. Many content management systems also have tools that can automate this process, including WordPress optimization plugins.
• Use lazy loading. Lazy loading is a technique that defers the loading of non-essential resources, such as images and videos, until they are needed as the user scrolls down the page. This reduces initial load time, saves bandwidth, and improves user experience by prioritizing visible content. It’s particularly useful for sites with lots of interactive elements, long-scrolling pages, and media-rich content. It can result in accelerated mobile pages, too.

Leverage browser caching

Caching allows frequently accessed resources, such as stylesheets, images, and JavaScript, to be stored in the user's browser, so they don’t need to be downloaded every time a user visits your page. Configure your server to specify how long browsers should keep files stored, effectively setting an "expiration date" for them, so your website doesn't waste time reloading the same resources.

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A CDN (content delivery network) can cache your site’s content across multiple servers worldwide, so users are served content from a server that's physically closer to them. This reduces load times and improves performance, especially for global audiences.

Minimize HTTP requests

Each element on a page, such as images, scripts, and stylesheets, requires a separate HTTP request to the server. The more requests your page makes, the longer it will take to load. By reducing the number of requests, you can significantly improve load times.

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• Combine files. Combine CSS and JavaScript files where possible.
• Inline small scripts. For smaller JavaScript or CSS files, consider inlining them directly into the HTML to avoid extra HTTP requests.
• Limit external resources. Avoid relying too much on third-party resources like external ads, widgets, or fonts, as these can slow down load times and increase HTTP requests.

Use asynchronous loading for JavaScript and CSS

JavaScript and CSS files determine the layout and look of a page. This means that the browser won’t start displaying content until it has fully loaded all of these files. By using "asynchronous" loading techniques, you can allow certain resources to load in the background without blocking the page’s render process.

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Use the async or defer attributes for your JavaScript files. The async attribute allows JavaScript files to load concurrently with the HTML content, while the defer attribute makes sure the script is executed only after the HTML has finished loading. For large CSS files, use the media attribute to load styles only when they are needed (like for print or mobile).

Optimize the critical rendering path

The critical rendering path refers to the sequence of steps a browser follows to convert HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into a visual representation of a webpage. This process involves rendering content in the most efficient way, so users can start interacting with a page as quickly as possible. The critical rendering path includes the steps from receiving the initial HTML document to painting the page on the screen. Any delays in this path (such as rendering-blocking resources like large CSS files or JavaScript) can slow down the perceived load time of a page. These are some ways you can optimize the path.

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• Minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. Minification is the removal of unnecessary characters (such as spaces, line breaks, and comments) from your code without affecting its functionality. This reduces file sizes, leading to faster load times. Tools like CSS minifiers and UglifyJS, as well as online minify code services, can remove unnecessary code from your CSS and JavaScript files. Just as you can minify CSS, you can minify your HTML files to remove excess spaces and line breaks.
• Inline critical CSS. For faster page rendering, inline small amounts of critical CSS directly into the HTML, allowing the browser to render above-the-fold content faster without waiting for external CSS files.
• Prioritize above-the-fold content. Make sure that the most important content (the content visible to the user without scrolling) loads first, so the page appears quickly and can be interacted with before the entire page finishes loading.

Enable Gzip compression

Gzip is a compression method that reduces the size of your website’s files, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Enabling Gzip compression can significantly reduce the amount of data your server needs to send to users, speeding up load times.

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Most modern web servers support Gzip, and you can enable it by modifying the server configuration (for example, through .htaccess for Apache servers or using server-side tools for Nginx).

Optimize your web hosting and server

The performance of your hosting provider and server can also impact your site's speed. If your hosting server is slow, no amount of SEO will fully compensate for poor performance.

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• Upgrade your hosting plan. Shared hosting plans are often slower because resources are shared with other websites. Consider upgrading to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) or dedicated hosting if your site is growing.
• Use HTTP/2. HTTP/2 is a newer version of the HTTP protocol that allows multiple requests to be sent at once over a single connection. This can reduce page load times significantly.
• Choose a reliable hosting provider. Make sure your web hosting provider has a reputation for uptime, speed, and reliable performance.

Page speed optimization tools

To effectively optimize your website’s speed, use tools that can analyze, identify, and provide actionable insights for improvement. Here are three of the top speed optimization tools you should consider using:

Google PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights is one of the most widely used tools for analyzing page speed. It provides a comprehensive performance score for both mobile and desktop versions of your site, along with detailed suggestions for improvement. Based on Google's Lighthouse and Web Vitals metrics, the tool evaluates aspects like loading time, interactivity, and visual stability. The recommendations are categorized into Opportunities (to improve performance) and Diagnostics (for more insights). It also provides a clear performance score (0-100) and recommendations for improvements like image optimization, reducing server response time, and leveraging browser caching. This tool is free and offers an easy-to-understand report on ways to boost your site's speed.

GTmetrix

GTmetrix is another popular speed testing tool that gives you a performance score based on Lighthouse and Web Vitals data. What sets GTmetrix apart is its detailed breakdown of performance, showing specific areas of your site that need improvement, such as large files or slow-loading scripts. It also reports on the total page size, load time, and number of requests. You can test from different locations around the world, which is particularly useful for sites with a global audience.

WebPageTest

WebPageTest is a robust and flexible tool that allows you to run tests from multiple locations and on different browsers. It provides detailed performance metrics, including Time to First Byte (TTFB), First Contentful Paint (FCP), and Fully Loaded Time. WebPageTest also offers advanced features such as visual snapshots of your page as it loads, allowing you to identify specific bottlenecks in the page load process. For developers, it provides deeper insights into resource loading and performance improvement.

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This list isn't exhaustive, but gives you a few good resources to start if you plan on conducting website audit or running site speed tests.

Rellify can transform how you do content

If you're feeling bogged down by all the technical details it takes to implement an effective SEO strategy with online content, Rellify can help. With expertise in SEO in all areas, Rellify's comprehensive platform can revolutionize your content creation process.

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With a custom Relliverse™, you can strategically leverage AI to find topics and keywords that are already resonating with your target audience, and create content that's poised to climb the search engine rankings. Contact a Rellify expert today to find out exactly how Rellify can help.