It is a mandatory requirement to make the website run fast if you want to fulfill the expectation of your users. Everyone, who is surfing on the internet, is devoid of patience and would want the site they clicked on to load at lightning speed. Any webpage or website failing to meet their expectations is chucked off in no time.
If the traffic is high on your website probably receiving hundreds and thousands of visitors every single day, then you need a robust underlying infrastructure to support that sort of traffic. High traffic volume means there will be a large number of users requesting for the website simultaneously. If your website doesn’t get uploaded in two to three seconds, there is a very high probability that the user will abandon your page to move on to some other website.
Every second count in uploading of a website. Data suggests that single second delay results in a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and 7% loss in conversion. If your website experiences slow loading during high traffic volume, you will end up losing up to 75% of your visitors.
Thus, it is of paramount importance to make a website run fast and here are a few tips to do so.
Upgrade Your Hosting Plan
You might have started with shared hosting, but now that your website is attracting huge traffic, move to a dedicated or a VPS plan. Once on the dedicated plan, you will have all resources to yourself with absolutely no sharing when it comes to RAM, bandwidth, CPU etc. VPS hosting, on the other hand, makes use of cloud technology and is a more scalable and affordable solution.
Minimize the HTTP Requests
It’s the images, scripts, and stylesheets that take up 80% of the loading time. All of these need HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) requests. Thus, if your webpage has more of these components, it will take longer for the page to upload. First, figure out the biggest culprits on your website and then implement the ways to reduce the HTTP requests based on your findings of the file sizes and corresponding load time.
In eCommerce website design, care is taken to keep image sizes smaller as they largely impact the site speed. The larger the size of your images, the more is the time it will take for the site to upload. So, to make the website run fast, the images need to be optimized before they are uploaded on the site. It can be done by reducing their resolution or compressing the picture and at times cropping it to cut out on extra areas, thus making the image smaller and hence faster to upload.
Minify Files
Removing redundant and unnecessary data from the source code without affecting its functionality is referred to as Minification. Each piece of code adds to the size of the file. All extra spaces, indentation, and line breaks also add to the size and hence should be eliminated. Minifying the JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files reduce the size of these files and help them to load faster.
Combine Files
Combining files also helps in reducing the total number of files. This tip is especially important if you used a template website builder during the eCommerce website development phase. People often opt for it as it provides an easy way out to build a website on templates, but these templates might have codes that slow the site drastically. If your site makes use of multiple JavaScript or CSS files you can actually combine them into one using the various plugins available.
Cut Down on External Scripts
External scripts are often added as an extra feature on the site. This includes things like “like my page” box, pop-up boxes, external fonts etc. All these external scripts also make HTTP requests whenever a new page gets loaded. Some of these are really important for your website but take care to exclude those that are large and take forever to load.
Use Caching Plugin
When web pages store the static files, it gets easier and quicker for the repeated visitors to access that page. This happens because then the database need not send the request for that particular file as it is already stored in the page cache. You can actually install a plugin that enables the site to store the already accessed pages. This, at least, makes the pages load faster for repeat visitors.
Sort Your Plugins
Excessive use of plugins can also slow down your website performance. Some plugins are extremely important to use and hence cannot be eliminated but refrain from using them excessively. Instead, try to use the plugins, which are versatile in nature. You should also review the plugins used at least once every 3-4 months. It is quite possible that you don’t need a few or you can replace a few with a more versatile new and improved one. This will not only reduce their number but also work better. The plugins are from a third party and hence they can also lead to vulnerabilities in the security. So, it is not only good to keep their count minimum for faster loading of the website but also for better security.
Go for Faster DNS Provider
Other than optimizing the website and having dedicated hosting, another important factor that makes the website run fast is fast DNS (Domain Name System) provider. The amount of time that the page takes to load is directly proportional to the time the DNS takes to look up for it. A DNS is a server with a database of all IP addresses and the associated hostnames. Whenever a visitor types a particular URL into the browser, it is the DNS server that translates the URL into IP address. Then, it is followed by a lookup process for that specific DNS record to find the IP address associated with the URL. The amount of time taken to complete this entire process depends on the speed of DNS provider. The faster it is, the earlier it will find. This will impact the website loading time positively.
Endnote:
Making the website load at lightning speed is very important or else all other efforts put in optimizing the website, having a clean and clear display, good navigation, SEO strategies to drive traffic to your website etc. will be futile. The slow uploading of websites also impacts the rankings on the SERPs. Thus, make use of these tips to make it load fast even if the traffic volume is high.
Author bio:
Micheal Anderson is a web expert with the reputed digital agency. He works on various services such as eCommerce website design, SEO service India, content creation for a new website, error solution etc.
