Site speed isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a must in today’s digital economy. Not only does a speedy site make for a happier, more engaged user experience, but it’s also a key player in your SEO game. Let’s explore why.
The Importance of Site Speed in eCommerce
First, let’s talk about bounce rates.
A bounce rate is like when you first walk into a store, take a peek around, and then leave empty-handed. In website speak, it’s the percentage of visitors who land on your page and then leave without clicking through to other pages. A high bounce rate typically means people aren’t finding what they’re looking for (or that your site isn’t all that interesting).
In terms of numbers, 53% of visitors are likely to abandon a page if it takes more than three seconds to load, and one out of two people expect a webpage to load in fewer than two seconds. Slow speeds can increase cart abandonment rates, and shoppers are less likely to purchase if the whole eCommerce experience is slow.
Sites that load quickly provide a better overall user experience, which translates to dollars since consumers are more engaged and more likely to browse products and click “add to cart.”
Google also uses site speed as a ranking factor, which means speedy sites are more likely to rank higher in search results.
There’s also something called the Core Web Vitals report, which gives you a good idea how your pages are performing based on real-world usage data. (We created a webinar on the topic if you’re interested in learning more.)
How to Assess Your Current Site Speed
There are certain widely used tools for measuring site speed, which include:
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- Lighthouse
- GTmetrix
- Pingdom
- CatchPoint (formerly WebPageTest)
Google PageSpeed and Lighthouse are free; GTmetrix, Pingdom, and CatchPoint are paid platforms but do offer either free trials or free versions.
Now let’s talk about how to interpret the results, and which key metrics to focus on.
- Page Load Time — The amount of time it takes for a webpage to fully appear. Faster load times = higher user satisfaction and engagement.
- Time to First Byte (TTFB) — The time it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of data from the server.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — How long it takes for the largest visible element on a page to load and be ready for users to interact with.
Those are the big ones, but here are a handful of others that you should keep in mind.
- First Contentful Paint (FCP) — The time it takes for the first piece of content to appear on the screen.
- First Input Delay — The time between a user’s first interaction with a page and how it takes for the browser to respond.
- Speed Index — How quickly the content of a page is visibility populated.
- Total Blocking Time (TBT) — A measure of how long a website or app keeps users waiting for interactive elements to become responsive.
10 Common Causes of Slow Site Speed
Once you’ve analyzed your data, you may realize your site is not as fast as you’d like. Let’s check out the usual suspects behind the lag.
- Heavy images and media files: Big images and videos take longer to load, slowing down your entire website. Compress those files, and you’ll see a big boost in speed.
- Excessive HTTP requests: Every component on your page — from images to scripts — makes up an HTTP request. The more requests are made, the longer it takes to load everything.
- Inefficient code and scripts: Clean, optimized code runs faster and keeps your site zippy.
- Poor server performance: If your server is sluggish, your site will be, too. A good hosting provider can make all the difference.
- Unoptimized themes and plug-ins: Fancy themes and plug-ins aren’t overly helpful if they aren’t optimized.
- Lack of caching mechanisms: Caching stores copies of your site’s data so that visitors don’t have to reload everything from scratch, making things load way faster.
- Excessive use of plug-ins: Too many plug-ins can clutter your site and slow it down. Stick to the essentials and ditch the rest.
- Not using a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN distributes your site across multiple servers worldwide, so visitors get faster load times no matter where they are.
- Poorly designed themes or templates: Choose themes that are both good-looking and efficient. Badly designed ones can slow down your site.
- Too many redirects: Keep redirects to a minimum to speed up your site.
15 Strategies for Improving Site Speed
Let’s dive into some proven strategies to get your site running at top speed.
- Optimize images: Reduce an image’s file size without sacrificing quality to improve your website’s load times.
- Use proper formats: Using the right image formats, such as WebP and JPEG, ensures your pictures look great without slowing down your site.
- Compress files: Reducing a file’s size helps your site load quicker and improves the overall user experience.
- Implement lazy loading: This means deferring the loading on non-essential resources, such as videos or images, until the users actually need them.
- Reduce the number of HTTP requests: Decrease the number of individual elements (like images, scripts, and stylesheets) that a web browser needs to load when accessing a webpage.
- Combine files: Merge multiple CSS stylesheets and JavaScript files into a single file for each type. This reduces the number of requests the browser has to make.
- Optimize code and script: Write clean, efficient code and avoid redundant scripts. Identify and eliminate any code that isn’t used or needed to streamline your site.
- Clean up CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. Remove unnecessary characters from the code, such as spaces, line breaks, comments, and other non-essential elements. The goal here is to reduce file size.
- Load scripts asynchronously: This means fetching JavaScript files in the background so they don’t hold up the rest of your page from loading. This way, your content shows up faster, and users don’t have to wait for all the scripts to load before they can start interacting with your site.
- Implement server and hosting improvements: Upgrade your server and optimize configurations to handle requests more efficiently.
- Reevaluate your hosting provider: A dependable hosting provider ensures your site runs smoothly and quickly, even during high traffic periods.
- Use CDNs: Content delivery networks distribute your content globally, reducing load times by serving resources from servers closer to your users.
- Set up server-side caching: Server-side caching, such as Redis or Varnish, stores data temporarily, speeding up load times for returning visitors.
- Optimize themes and plug-ins: Think of this as giving your site a tune-up. Make sure everything is up-to-date and that only the essential plugs are active. Choose lightweight themes that are designed to be fast and efficient.
- Audit plug-ins on a regular basis: Take a close look at which plug-ins you’re using and make sure they’re still necessary and working well. New updates often fix bugs, close security gaps, and improve performance. And when it comes to the number of plug-ins, think quality over quantity. You can keep your website lean and speedy by ditching the ones you don’t need.
WooCommerce-Specific Speed Optimizations
WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms on the market. It works seamlessly with WordPress and caters to both beginners and tech gurus with a user-friendly interface that allows you to easily build and manage your online store.
If you’re on team WooCommerce, here are some specific tips for optimizing for site speed:
- Tweak your settings: Adjusting things like how products are displayed or how transactions are processed can make all the difference.
- Use the correctly sized images: You want to embrace the ‘Goldilocks’ mentality here — images that aren’t too big or too small, but clear enough to show off your goods and load quickly.
- Limit product variations and related products: Keep things simple and avoid a lot of product variations. It not only keeps your site running smoothly, but it also keeps customers from feeling overwhelmed.
- Clean up your database regularly: Remove outdated or unnecessary data, and consider using database optimization plug-ins. These can automatically clean and organize your database so you don’t have to sort through everything manually.
- Implement specific page caching and object strategies: Page caching saves a copy of the page so it can be served up instantly. Object caching stores bits of data, like user sessions or product details, so your site doesn’t need to pull them from the database every time.
- Choose WooCommerce-specific caching plug-ins: These are tailored just for WooCommerce, so they know exactly how to handle your store’s unique needs.
How to Monitor and Maintain Site Speed
Now that you have a list of strategies under your belt, here are some additional ways to ensure smooth sailing.
Check site speed monthly
New assets: Over time, new stuff like images, videos, or scripts from different people can get added to your site, and this might slow things down a bit.
Hosting changes: If you switch hosting providers or your shared server gets overloaded, it can definitely impact how quickly your site loads.
Plug-in updates: When plug-ins get updated, they can bring in new code that might mess with your site’s speed or create compatibility hiccups.
External dependencies: Sometimes the third-party services or APIs you rely on can change, which might affect how fast your site loads.
Traffic patterns: Changes in the number of visitors to your site can sometimes highlight performance issues that weren’t obvious before.
You also want to schedule regular speed tests and analyze any changes or trends over time. Stay up-to-date with best practices, follow industry blogs for the latest information, and don’t be afraid to implement new technologies and techniques to get the results you want.
Vital Can Help With Your Need for Speed
Site speed is more than just a techie buzzword; it’s the secret sauce for keeping your visitors happy and your SEO game strong. Faster load times mean a smoother experience for your users and a better shot at climbing those search engine rankings. If you’re looking for help in this department, we have a pretty awesome team of web developers and digital marketing experts who know this stuff inside out. Reach out today to start the conversation.
FAQs on Site Speed Optimization
How do I optimize my website speed?
Start by making sure your images and videos are properly sized and compressed — big files can really drag things down. Use caching to store and quickly serve up frequently accessed data, and minimize the number of HTTP requests by combining files and removing any unnecessary ones. Regularly check and update your plug-ins and themes to keep everything running smoothly.
What is considered a good website speed?
The general consensus is under three seconds for loading. If your site can load in two seconds or less, you’re really hitting the sweet spot. Faster than that, and you’re likely to see happy visitors and better SEO results.
Does site speed affect Google rankings?
Yes! Google loves fast-loading sites because they provide a better experience for users. If your site loads quickly, you’re more likely to climb the search rankings and attract more visitors.
How do I make Google index my site faster?
Make sure you have a clean, up-to-date sitemap and submit it through Google Search Console. Keeping your site’s content fresh and regularly updated also signals to Google that there’s new stuff to check out.
How do I get Google to crawl my site immediately?
Use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console to request indexing of specific pages. Make sure your site’s sitemap is up-to-date and submitted since this will help Google discover your pages faster.
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