6 Steps to Creating a Super-Fast Website Experience

In the fast-paced world, if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you will lose traffic. High-speed technology and the internet have spoiled users. Getting the exact information instantly has resulted in a shorter attention span. They will quickly lose interest in a site that takes forever to load. In fact, most of them would move on to another site after about 5 seconds of waiting. 

According to the top Web Design Wigan agency, a website’s load time correlates to its success. The faster it loads, the better the user experience which is likely to result in a higher conversion rate. 

We highlight the basic steps you need to take to provide visitors with a super-fast website experience. 

Step 1: Pick the right hosting plan 

The hosting service you choose plays a pivotal role in website speed. You want to go with an option that provides stable, high-performance hosting. Businesses have the following hosting options to choose from:

• Shared – the cheapest option, but you have to share the server with numerous other clients. This result in a slower website due to more server traffic. 
• Virtual Private Server (VPS) – as the name suggests, it is a private server that provides faster load time than shared. It utilises multiple machines rather than just one. 
• Dedicated – the server is dedicated to your website and provides optimum speed. It also gives you control over the configurations, letting you optimize for performance. 

You need to consider your budget and pick between the three. We recommend at least going with VPS since you don’t have to share the server with too many websites, which results in lower load time. If you have the budget and want total control then Dedicated is the way to go. 

Step 2: Compress images

High-quality images are an important component of a website. Otherwise, it comes off as a dull book, just pages with words. 

Now, high-quality images are typically large files, which take some time to load. You’ve probably visited many websites where the image takes forever to load. You don’t want that on your website. This is why you need to compress images before putting them up on your website. There are tools such as TinyJPG and Online Image Compressor that do the job for you. 

Step 3: Sign up for a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

The internet allows you to generate traffic from any part of the world. Content Delivery Network (CDN) ensures that no matter where the visitor is coming from, they will have access to your website quickly. 

CDN optimizes the delivery of the website’s static files which include images, fonts, CSS, and JavaScript. It stores the files on various servers around the globe. So, when a user from another part of the world accesses your website, they get the files from the closest server, which improves load time. 

Step 4: Use cache

Cache results in faster load times on websites users visit often. By using a cache, you leave data from your website on the user’s device. So, the next time they visit, the device doesn’t have to reload the data, since it’s already stored. This results in faster load time and also limits the requests made to your website, which impacts other users trying to access it. 

Step 5: Limit the use of plugins

Plugins are useful since they allow you to add specific features to the website with ease. Content management systems (CMS) offer a wide variety of plugins. For example, WordPress offers one that turns your basic website into e-commerce. The plugin handles all the technical aspect that deals with the conversion, all you have to do is apply it. 

While plugins add value to your website, you need to determine if they are essential. Not only do they slow down your website but can result in bugs. Many plugins are poorly written or clash with the existing website code, resulting in issues. Therefore, limit the use of plugins as much as you can. If you must use them, use Query Monitor or other tools to keep a check on plugin performance. 

Step 6: Keep track of your website’s performance

SEO Wigan agency recommends keeping a constant check on your website and its performance. When it comes to speed, there are automated tools that can assess the speed and provide insights on how you can improve it. We recommend using Google’s PageSpeed Insight or WebPageTest. These are easy to use and a blessing for tracking a website’s speed and performance. 

Final thought

Improving site speed isn’t as challenging as you think. There are some technical aspects to it, but nothing most people with some website knowledge can’t handle. The steps mentioned above should help you get started in creating a super-fast experience for your audience. The website will be fast enough that users won’t exit it before it even loads.