7 Factors to Consider while Optimizing Mobile Site Speed

40% of people will abandon a mobile website that takes more than three seconds to load. Fortunately, there are solution that can tackle this problem and improve your mobile marketing strategy. Our 8th part of ‘Digital Marketers Week’ discusses the same.

Below are 7 steps to follow for increasing your mobile site’s speed dramatically:

1. Test how quickly Pages Download

Regularly test your mobile webpages and use different services and at different times, because tests results will differ.

You may use WebPageTestthat measures speed, page size and shows what proportion of the data and requests belong to images, JavaScript etc. For something less technical, use Google’s PageSpeed Insights, however, Google doesn’t actually test page speed, it estimates page speed based on key criteria, but it is excellent at pointing out problems with the page.

Top issues identified by Google include problems with image size and JavaScript codes.

2. Using Accelerated Mobile Pages

The AMP project is an open-source initiative created by Google. Its purpose is to improve the experience of mobile users.AMP pages are very easy to create. You just need to familiarize yourself with the three basic components, which are listed on the AMP project siteand summarized below.

· AMP HTML

HTML has been the primary markup language for building websites for over 20 years. This has not changed with the introduction of AMP.

AMP HTML is the open-source code used to create AMP pages. The majority of AMP HTML code is the same as regular HTML. However, there are some special tags that are made specifically for AMP.

· AMP JS

JavaScript plays an important role in modern web design. The AMP Project provides its own open-source JavaScript code called AMP JS.

These scripts are important for increasing web page load speeds. Unfortunately, since AMP can only be used to create static pages, you won’t be able to embed third-party JavaScript in it.

· AMP CDN

AMP CDN is a content delivery network built specifically for AMP pages. You don’t need to utilize it to make use of AMP pages, but it can significantly improve the performance of your pages and it allows you to cache them, making them easier to share.

3. Improve the Site Structure, Content and Enhance the User Experience

If your site structure is not proper, then the page will take more time to load.

How to Improve Site Structure?

One of the most crucial aspects of a good search experience is having a good site structure because it helps to optimize the site for better crawling.Here are the steps to enhance your site structure:

·  Plan your site hierarchy and keep it logical. Also, balance the number of categories and subcategories. An example of a refined site structure is provided below:

Use searchable keywords while naming your categories and subcategories. Picking the right names will go a long way in optimizing your site.

· Have a user friendly URL structure and ensure that the user takes just three or fewer clicks to reach every page.

· Add sitelinks as many as possible. Apart from increasing the navigability of the site, sitelinks help to increase brand reputation, increase CTR and shorten the conversion funnel.

· Add as many internal links as possible but make sure they are all relevant. An enhanced and SEO friendly internal linking structure will allow every page to rank well on Google thereby increasing traffic and conversions.

· Avoid the problem of redundant categories and tags.

· Link to your most important pages more often and above the fold.

· Follow the 2 click rule which says that it should take only 2 clicks to reach to your revenue generating page from your home page.

4. Conduct user testing

Conduct surveys and interviews with users as they interact with the website. Use eye tracking to see what catches their attention and which images work. Use heat-maps and web analytics to track how users interact with webpages and where they look.

5. Optimize images

Optimizing images can often yield some of the largest byte savings and performance improvements.

How to solve it?

· Take into consideration using responsive images: The aim of responsive images is to deliver the highest quality image supported and nothing more.

· Further, don’t use images that are too large compared to how they are displayed.

6. Minify JavaScript and CSS

There are a few plug-ins that will help reduce the size of your JavaScript and CSS files, and/or combine files together to reduce the number of requests made to your server when loading a page, thus increasing loading time.

You can try one of the following:

· Autoptimize

· Better WordPress Minify

It’s best to activate and test the plug-in whilst you’re in the process of improving your site.

7. Leverage Browser Caching

Installing a plugin such as WP Super Cache is a great way to improve loading time. Another note on caching, when you are testing the site for its speed, its best to clear the cache, refresh your page a few times and then retest every time you make a change.

Have you optimized your mobile site for speed yet? Share your experiences by leaving a comment below.