]Appearing higher in SERPs and search engines is one of the best ways to increase traffic on your website. There are a lot of factors that search engines consider when ranking websites on SERPs. Some of the factors are page speed, site structure, backlinks, etc.
One of the factors you can utilize to increase your rank on SERPs is the page speed. Page speed optimization, in conjunction with other factors, can bring much traffic to your website. Page speed refers to the amount of time it takes to load a particular page’s content on a site. It also refers to the amount of time it takes your browser to collect the first byte of data from a web server.
How Can Website Speed Optimization help my Website?
Everyone wants a smooth and fast internet adventure. Frustration and disappointment set in when you try to load a page, and it takes forever to display its content. One of the importance of utilizing page speed optimization is;
Good Browsing Experience:
When the pages on your website load quickly, it gives your website visitors a good experience making them want to come back to your website anytime they require it. Many websites deliver content with the same or similar link as your website. To outshine and stand out, you have to have the edge over them. Page speed optimization will be of great help.
Web-users will choose a website whose pages load quickly over a website that takes forever to load its pages. It would help if you did not backslide with your page speed has it can do a great deal of job in building traffic to your website.
Search Engines:
One of the importance of page speed optimization is to increase your influence on search engines. Search engines consider a lot of factors when ranking websites, one of the factors being page speed. When a web user searches a keyword, search engines check out websites with content on the keyword through SEOs. After checking through, they rank the websites considering different factors.
If your website has a good page speed, search engines will rank it high and deliver it to web users. There is much more importance of page speed optimization to your website, so you should ensure you have a good page speed.
How to Improve Website Speed?
There are many ways to improve page speed optimization. Here are a few of the effective ways:
- Compress large files: One of the factors that slow down a page is large files on the page. To increase the page speed of the website, you should compress the large files on the pages. Your website contains JavaScript, HTML, CSS files. You should compress these files with tools like GNU Gzip, TextFixer, JSCompress, etc.
- Compress Pictures: Pictures can also slow down the display of a page. Compressing images does a lot of jobs when optimizing your page speed. You can also reduce the size of the pictures using tools like Squoosh, Adobe Photoshop, WP Smush, Kraken, etc.
- Improve Server Response Time: If you have a slow server response time, you can also experience slow page speed. It would be best if you improve your server response time. Your server response time should be below 200ms with an ideal response time of 100ms.
- Reduce Your Redirects: Whenever there is a redirect, the web user faces time and stress waiting for the HTTP response cycle. If this happens frequently, it will piss visitors off and thereby reduce the traffic on your website.
- Extend Browser Cache: You should leverage on the cache to help optimize your page speed. The cache is a piece of stored website information that enables users to easily return to pages they loaded. Leverage on the cache so users will be able to come back to your website easily.
Where to test website speed?
Here is small list of most used websites to monitore website speed:
Conclusion
To build traffic on your website, it would be best if you optimize your page speed. Make your page display in time to increase visitors’ preference for your site.