In 2022, it’s not enough just to have a website. You also need to have a high-performing website that provides an unparalleled user experience.
Are you happy with how your website is performing? More importantly, are your customers or clients happy with the way it performs?
Read on to learn more about the importance of leveling up your website. You’ll also find 7 effective ways you can start improving your website’s performance today.
Why Website Performance Matters
If you’re serious about setting your business up for long-term success, you need to take website performance seriously. The following are some of the top reasons why it matters:
Increase Brand Awareness
A website that loads quickly gets rewarded with a higher search engine ranking and will get closer to the coveted top spot on the search engine results page (or SERP). When this happens, it’s easier for people to find your website and learn about your business.
Boost Brand Reputation
Not only will people be able to find your website more easily, but they’ll also think more highly of your business if you have a fast-loading, high-performing website.
If you provide people with a better user experience, they’ll be more inclined to continue working with your business, as well as to tell others about it.
Gain an Advantage Over Competitors
The sooner you upgrade your website’s performance, the sooner you’ll gain an advantage over your competitors.
More people are shopping online these days than ever before. If your website works better, they’ll be more inclined to choose your business over another one.
Increase Conversion Rates
When your business is easier to find online, has a good reputation, and stands out from your competitors, you’ll notice an increase in your conversion rates. If you’re looking to boost your business’s bottom line, prioritizing website performance is a must.
How to Improve Website Performance
Do you want your business to experience any (or all) of these benefits? If so, here are 7 ways you can start improving your website’s performance:
1. Enable Browser Caching
Browser caching is essential to reducing your website’s loading times.
Enabling browser caching sends a message to your website visitors’ website browsers. This message tells the browser to temporarily store some (or in some cases, all) of your website’s files.
This saves visitors from having to fully reload your website each time they return to it. As a result, they’ll experience faster load times and will access your content sooner.
2. Eliminate Unnecessary Plugins
The more plugins you’re using for your website, the slower it is likely to be. In addition to impacting your load speeds, too many plugins can also create security gaps, which provide access to the backend of your business’s website.
Go through all the plugins you’re currently using on your website. Then, identify the ones that you don’t use anymore or don’t need, and deactivate and uninstall them.
3. Compress and Minify Files
Decreasing the size of web pages and other files reduces load time and make it easier for your website’s pages to render.
The best way to reduce the size of web pages is with GZIP (or GNU Zip). This process compresses webpages on the server-side, then sends the compressed files to your website visitors’ browser.
As for other files, such as CSS files and Javascript files, consider minifying them. Minification removes unnecessary characters from your website’s code. This speeds up the website and enhances its performance without eliminating essential features.
4. Optimize Images
High-quality images have a positive impact on your website’s appearance and people’s perception of your business. However, if these pictures take a long time to load, they detract from your company and can affect website performance.
Consider compressing images before uploading them to the website so they load more quickly. You can also resize them so they work better for modern screens (smartphone screens, tablet screens, etc.).
5. Consider a Content Delivery Network
A content delivery network (or CDN) is a cluster of servers located all over the world. These distributed server networks store copies of websites and prevent too much of a load from being placed on one server. This speeds up load times and enhances overall website performance and user experience.
6. Get Rid of Landing Page Redirects
In the past, landing page redirects were recommended to take mobile website visitors to the most appropriate version of a website. These redirects also made the websites cacheable and sped up future visits.
Today, the majority of online searches are made from mobile devices. As a result, landing page redirects are no longer required.
Instead of creating multiple versions of your website and directing people to the right one, aim to create one mobile-friendly website that works across a variety of platforms.
7. Reduce Domain Name System Lookups
A domain name system (or DNS) lookup happens every time someone types in a URL. Their browser has to check DNS records to look up the website’s IP address.
In most cases, the lookup process is very efficient. If a website features a lot of resources from third-party sites, though, things can slow down quite a bit.
Reducing the number of DNS lookups on your site will make a big difference when it comes to speeding up and improving website performance.
Using a CDN helps to reduce DNS lookups, as does enable a process known as DNS prefetching (this is an attempt to resolve domain names before any resources are requested). You can also reduce lookups by deferring loading for non-critical Javascript files.
Upgrade Your Website Today
If you want to increase brand awareness, build up your business’s reputation, and increase conversions, it’s time to focus on improving your website performance. Follow the steps listed above and you’ll have a higher-performing, faster-loading website before you know it.
Don’t know how to perform the tasks discussed in this guide? Want to learn about other ways to enhance website performance? If so, we can help at Jolifox.
We are a software development company that offers our clients an entire team of developers, plus a software manager, at an affordable rate. Contact us today to learn more about our services or to set up a consultation.
Image source: Freepik
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