Increase Traffic With Page Load Speed Improvements

Having a beautiful, stunning website is often very important to businesses, but at what cost? Sites that take a longer time to load compared to other sites can create even more of a headache for business owners than older sites in many cases. But why is this? Page load speed is one of the leading factors leading to bounce rates with Google. The higher your bounce rate and page load speed, the less Google will favor your site. But what can you do to improve your page load speed to less than 3 seconds for ecommerce and 5 seconds for standard sites? Here are some tips to keep your traffic on your site!

 

Clean Up Your Javascript

Dirty coding makes page load speeds slower. The more information a processor has to process, makes the CPU work harder and load slower (shocking!). You can verify the amount of Javascript on your site simply by using tools available from Google. If you are receiving notifications that your Javascript is too high, consider choosing a developer to go into your site and do a spring cleaning.

 

Minify CSS & HTML

While checking your Javascript with Google Tools, be sure to check your CSS & HTML as well. Your developer can help you check the size of this information and help you reduce the size, without hurting the site operations.

 

Reduce 301 Redirects

301 redirects tell the world that, “Hey, this content has been move to a new page, check it out!”. This is helpful when there are only a few 301 redirects. When you start to talk hundreds of redirects this can hurt your page load speeds immensely, especially if these pages are content heavy. A redirect takes can add an additional 1-2 seconds to your load speed which can cut grow your bounce rate by 50%.

 

Upgraded Hosting

Ever heard the phrase, you get what you pay for? This 100% the case when it comes to hosting. Your website host holds your site information on a server that search engines use to pull the information to you. If the server fails to respond in a timely manner, your page load speed will be affected. Using a low-end host may save you money each month, but it will end up costing you in sales.

 

Reduce Image Size

Sorry, but a 2500×1400 image will load slower than a 400×400. Talk with your team and review your page load speeds to see what standard image sizes should be used throughout the site.

 

These are just a few ways you can reduce your page load speed, and boost your SEO efforts. Learn more from Atria, the national SEO management leader today!