how to website speed optimization?

As is logical, for a few years Google has (very) taken into account the loading time of a web page for SEO ranking.

However…

• Why does Google attach so much importance to loading speed?
• Do we know to what extent this affects our SEO?

If Google has become so serious about this, it is because it is really aware of the importance that the user experience should always be as satisfactory as possible. No more no less.

Google is interested in having all your users satisfied every time they perform a search.

In the same way that penalizes the fact that a web page is not "mobile-friendly" (making it disappear automatically from searches), pages whose content weighs so much that it slows down its load are also penalized.

Who has not ever abandoned a website because it was taking too long to load?

Studies on web speed and user behavior

12 years ago, in 2006 40% of users left a website because the page took more than 4 seconds to load. Today, for an average user more than 2 seconds of waiting is too much.

According to a study published by Amazon, for every second of delay their conversions were down 7%, which is equivalent to 2.5 million dollars in losses per year.

Surely those who already surfed the internet 10 or 15 years ago have waited patiently for minutes to load a web page (and without questioning).

Well, this is over, for better or worse now depends on literally seconds, and even hundredths of a second so that our user experience is very positive or very negative.

[bctt tweet = ?12 years ago, in 2006 40% of users left a website because the page took more than 4 seconds to load. Today, for an average user more than 2 seconds of waiting is too much. ?Username =? repcoconut ?]

How to analyze and improve the loading time of your website Does it take too long to load your website?

If so, calm down.

There are many ways to lighten your website and get better loading times.

Your users will thank you and Google will love it.

In WordPress for example, there are many different elements that make a web load quickly or not.

From the plugins that we have installed, the size of the photos and videos, the advertising displays, the server where it is hosted, etc ...

The hosting (server where our website is hosted) is undoubtedly one of the most determining factors since, it is no use to have the website optimized if our hosting is not working properly.

But first of all, we will learn to measure and analyze the loading speed of our website with the tools that are available for it as Google's PageSpeed Insights.

Once we have detected those elements that slow down our website, we will proceed to eliminate those that do not serve and lighten all the others, all of which preserving (of course) the appearance and quality of the page.

How to use Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze the speed of your website

What better than a tool developed by Google to analyze the loading speed of our page?

PageSpeed Insights will allow us to do a load test in both mobile and desktop versions.

The result will go from 0 to 100, the closer we get to 100 the better of course.

3. How to improve the loading time of your website

First of all we want to warn you that you should not be obsessed with reaching a score close to 100 at any cost.

There is one thing that the robots that analyze our page do not take into account and there are resources such as social sharing buttons that usually consider them as an element that slows down the load but, what if we need them?

The same goes for many other resources that contact an external server such as a contact form for example.

Depending on the nature of the web, in many cases they will be essential elements for our page so, even if they "slow down" the load, we should not throw ourselves away if we have a score of 65-80 for example.

As we said, you should not be obsessed with the score your website receives on PageSpeed Insights. There is a curious case that still serves as consolation and it is YouTube that suspends the test with 39 points out of 1000.

Yes, you read correctly, one of the Google pages does not pass its own loading speed test.

3. How to improve the loading time of your website

As you can see, YouTube's score is mediocre enough to be a Google website. But does it load so slowly?

The truth is that no, that's why you should not pull your hair if you see that your page receives a low score. Which does not mean that you look at what your website is failing and try to fix what you can.

Below the score, you will find detailed all the points at which your page falters with links where they explain how to fix it. Some things are basic, others you will need help from your hosting provider and with those that are directly from WordPress or from your template you probably need help from a programmer if you look very lost.

3. How to improve the loading time of your website

We leave you a video in which Borja Girón explains very well how this Google tool works:

In addition, we recommend that you use other tools in addition to PageSpeed to contrast such as GTMetrix or Pingdom Tool. You will notice that there will be slight differences in the results but, at least, they will provide you with different tips on the points to improve.

3 basic elements that influence the loading speed of your website

To improve your loading time we will see what factors we should focus on in order to optimize our website and prevent Google and the bad experience of our visitors from harming us.

A web page that loads faster than the average will have more ballots to go up in the Google ranking and, as you know, disappearing from the first pages of the search is equivalent to almost ?not being on the Internet?.

Plugins

Oh, the famous plugins ... The truth is that installing plugins is sometimes like the apps with the mobile that we want to try all and in the end we end up installing right and left without analyzing if it is really necessary.

In the end, we end up having many that we never use and that are constantly consuming resources.

load WordPress plugins

In addition, some WordPress plugins are authentic resource eaters squeezing our server.

If we are going to install a plugin at least we must have a number of factors in mind. As for example (and very important) to see when it has been updated, if it is compatible with your version of WordPress and investigates and verifies that its author is trusted.

And a plugin to optimize WordPress?

We are talking about removing plugins to improve speed but we are going to recommend that you install one precisely to achieve the same. How do you stay?

And it is that plugins are not bad, but you have to know how to choose the best ones and those really need and give you more.

In this aspect, for me, the best one by far is WP Rocket.

With just a couple of clicks, this plugin will automatically do magic inside your WordPress.

The only "inconvenience"? It is a payment plugin, but I assure you it is worth every euro it costs.

The images

Usually, a web page will contain several images. We must imperatively ensure that each and every one of the images on our website is properly optimized to weigh as little as possible.

Don't even think about uploading a photo to your website directly without optimizing it!

Now we explain how to do it with Photoshop or with online tools thanks to which we can reduce up to 80% the weight of the images without any loss of quality, but first, a very common doubt.

Ok but in what format, JPG or PNG?

The JPG format is the most suitable for realistic photographs and images that in its original format would occupy several megabytes since when compressed, they can occupy a few hundred Kb or less depending on the compression ratio.

Only the loss of quality would be appreciated on very large screens or when zooming.

The PNG format is the most suitable for use in website backgrounds, in icons and graphics or images that are not photographs, or with thin lines or text since even if they are not compressed, they should not occupy too much KB. In addition, thanks to its transparent background, they can be used anywhere easily, while maintaining high quality.

Hosting or web server

The hosting where we host our website will be a determining factor in order to have an acceptable loading speed that allows us to have a good positioning and user experience.

We must avoid falling in offers of accommodation with very low prices since, most likely, over time we end up having to change servers with the headaches that can lead to.

A quality hosting is necessary so that the performance of your website is adequate. Preferably you must be in the same country to which the web is directed, and if possible it is a dedicated server, especially if it is for a business.

If you ask us from Nosinmiscookies and the Coconut Republic, we have been trusting Raiola Networks for both us and our clients for what is our favorite option.

The speed of loading a website matters a lot

These are the three essential points that you should keep in mind when accelerating the loading time of your website.

The user experience depends tremendously on the time it takes to load your page. It does not matter that it is visually spectacular if it takes two seconds or three more to load, you will lose many users along the way.

Our website speed optimization services help you.

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