When you think of page speed, you may consider how quick your website page loads upon access. This is really essential for your search engine rankings. Why? Well, these days, when users look for some information on Google, they want it fast and they want it now, mainly on mobile. So, where do we start?
Features That Affect Page Speed
Page speed is determined by three major factors – the load time of the page from several standpoints (in several countries, browsers, etc.); the implemented speed of any event (how quickly images load, response time to button clicks, etc.); and how quickly the browser can examine the document piece by piece earlier than making accessible for user interaction.
Time to first byte (TTFB) is a dimension of how long it takes for your browser to get the first byte of the information from a web server. Google uses the time to the first byte as an important factor for rankings. When tracking website speed, always use a browser that supports the HTML5 Navigation Timing interface, for example, Firefox 7, Chrome, Internet Explorer 9 or later, Android 4.0 browser or later, in addition to any former versions of Internet Explorer with the Google Toolbar installed.
Making the Move to Mobile-Friendly
One part of page speed analytics that needs to be determined on by website developers is mobile -friendly websites. More and more people are visiting sites using their mobile devices and if your website is not mobile friendly, you will be left in the dust with a poor search engine ranking.
User interaction is significant when it comes to having a mobile-friendly website. For instance, if online users need to touch or zoom to see your content, most probable, they will get irritated and leave your site. When you have a mobile friendly website, your content is legible and functional. Check out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to observe if your site is mobile-friendly and to boost your search engine ranking.
Minimization is the Name of the Game
If you wish to increase your website page speed analytics even further, minimize your resources such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. When you minify your site resources, you get rid of useless or unnecessary data without changing how the resource is considered by the browsers. These avoidable or useless codes comprise code formatting, comments, and any other unused codes.
Also, make certain to optimize your code by excluding commas, spaces, and any other unnecessary characters. If you do like to learn further about minifying CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, you can visit Google’s Minify Resources page.
Reduce Redirects
Every time a page redirects to some other page, your visitor faces extra time waiting for the HTTP request-response cycle to complete. For instance, if your mobile redirect pattern somewhat like this: “example.com -> www.example.com -> m.example.com -> m.example.com/home,” all of those two extra redirects makes your web page load slower.
Improve Server Response Time
Your website server response time is affected by the total of traffic you get, the resources every page uses, the software your web server uses, and the hosting solution you use. To reduce the response time of your web server, look for performance bottlenecks like slow routing, slower database queries, or a lack of enough memory and fix them. The best server response time is under 200ms.
Conclusion
When you have spent lots of days creating a new website, you wish it to be wonderful. Each element, image, and icon should be top-notch. However, that frequently leaves you with a site that is slower than the greatest practices set by Google. And when it comes to driving conversions on your website, speed will forever play a big role. It must be one of your major priorities when trying to optimize and perfect your site.