Ways to Improve Your Page Speed

This past April we released a blog to really start amping up the water cooler chatter surrounding  Google’s much anticipated update to their Core Web Vitals coming the following June – August.

With such a huge update comes a tsunami of waves bound to cascade through the infrastructure of new and seasoned businesses alike.

And boy oh boy did Google’s update not disappoint. 

Or...maybe, for some businesses, it did?

Suffice to say, whether you felt as though you and your business drew the short end of the stick, the Core Web Vitals update did a number on a LOT of businesses and their search engine rankings. 

However, even though the ripple effects were felt, they’re nowhere near what we could call permanent. 

Your page’s health, and ultimately the user experience of your website, can be vastly improved without the headache. 

Increasing your page load speed by even one second can take you from a “poor” or “needs improvement” ranking to “good.” And we’re here to show you how to do just that. 

Optimize Images

High-quality video and images do wonders for your brand. They convey professionalism, industry knowledge, and are capable of telling your brand story in a way that is both captivating and memorable.

However, with great power comes great responsibility. And images that are too large for the device they are being viewed on can, unfortunately, greatly reduce the page load speed which, in turn, diminishes the user experience. 

One way to fix this is through compression.

Compressing your images can be done either with a tool like Adobe Photoshop or by utilizing a plugin. But if you do decide to go the manual compression route, keep in mind there is such a thing as compressing an image too much. This can lead to the file size being smaller, but the quality being degraded, as well. 

Reduce Your Plugins

Plugins are great online tools that can help your business by extending the functionalities of your website. 

But too many good things can actually be a bad thing, especially if those good things are not being utilized and slowing your website down. 

While some businesses can get away with up to 30 plugins, there are the outliers that find themselves closing in on triple digits. The sheer number of server requests being made with that many plugins can be the downfall of your website, causing an incredible lag in page load speed, site crashes, and even security breaches. 

So, whenever possible, audit your plugins to ensure the ones on your website are both necessary and regularly utilized. 

Leverage Browser Caching

Browser caching works by remembering certain files in your website and updating them at different intervals.

English?

When a visitor finds your website, they can store some of your site’s files in their browser so the amount of data that is downloaded is far less upon a repeat visit. This act alone reduces the number of download requests to your server and reduces your page load time by a LOT.

Minify

Minifying your code (JavaScript, CSS, and HTML) is a fancy way of saying you should compress your code and make it as lightweight as possible. This reduces the bandwidth necessary for your website to load and can be done by removing unnecessary characters (commas, whitespace, new lines, etc.). 

For example, a code of JavaScript can look like this:

But the same code when minified can look like this:

Minifying your code can produce almost instant results for your website. So, if you’re fairly well-versed in coding language yourself, you can utilize a few online resources to minify your code such as a website or a plugin. 

However, if you’re not familiar with coding language, it’s better to be safe than sorry and choose to invest in using the expertise found in a professional dev team. 

Utilize a CDN

A content delivery network (CDN) refers to a geographically distributed group of servers which work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content.

Not only do CDNs increase a website’s performance by delivering content closer to the user’s network (minimizes delays), but they also reduce costs associated with bandwidth, and improve website security. 

That’s a lot of wins just by utilizing a CDN. 

Websites that want to rank well on search engines, especially Google, need to have a higher than average Core Web Vitals score. 

And one of the easiest ways to set out on the right foot towards accomplishing that is by improving your page speed. 

Looking for a blazing fast website that can do it all? Schedule your free consultation to check out Primitive’s newest in-house CMS, Bind, by clicking the link below.