Is your website slow? A slow website might cost you more than time: in fact, a website that loads slowly may be costing you business.

Search engines use page loading time as one of the metrics for ranking your website in search results. As a result, a slow loading website could defeat all the search engine optimization (SEO) efforts from your Internet marketing agency.

Equally importantly, users are very impatient when it comes to web browsing. In 2019, nearly 4.1 billion people had access to the Internet. However, 40% of those users will navigate away from your site if they experience a delay of three seconds in loading time.

As a result, improving your website speed is critical to capturing leads and converting those leads into customers. Here are three ways you can increase your website performance:

Address Website Design Issues

Many sources of delay come from poor website design. A well-designed website from an experienced internet marketing agency uses a few techniques to speed up loading times, including:

• Reducing HTTP requests: HTTP requests are how parts of your page are sent from the server to the user’s browser. Each request eats up processor time and memory and slows down your page loading speed. HTTP keep-alive response headers reduce the number of requests by using the same connection to transmit multiple parts of your page.
• Compressing content: Complex code often requires big files. Compression allows smaller versions of files to be transmitted while still providing the same instructions on the receiving end. One example of compression is a routine that removes spaces and characters from HTML code to reduce the amount of data that is transmitted. You can also compress your images and a number of other factors on your site.
• Minifying routines: JavaScript and CSS files are typically large. Minifying is similar to compression. Unnecessary line breaks, spaces, and indentations are removed to reduce the size of the files.

Many business owners don’t know how to do this on their own. When you need a hand, don’t hesitate to reach out to an internet marketing company you can trust.

Identify Network Issues

Sometimes your web host is responsible for your slow loading times. Some reasons your website might experience slow loading times due to hosting issues include:

• Slow DNS: The DNS is what connects your URL to your website. A slow DNS will introduce a delay between when a user enters your web address into their browser and when your page begins loading.
• Outdated equipment: As internet marketing firms build more sophisticated and dynamic features into webpages, the servers and communications equipment must advance to maintain network speeds. Old or obsolete equipment might be unable to handle the large files and fast communication speeds needed for newer websites.
• Incorrect configuration: Errors in configuring server hardware or software can lead to slow loading times as processes conflict with each other or are improperly prioritized.

Banish Technology Issues

A website that is outdated or insecure can lead to page loading issues. For example, an outdated or incorrect TLS certificate can cause a page to load incorrectly or error messages to appear in the user’s browser. This is bad news if you want people to stay on your site. Any type of error message will encourage your customers to go elsewhere.

Similarly, outdated website plugins may generate error messages or cause a browser to display your website incorrectly. Making sure your website is up to date can help you maximize your website’s performance and ensure that the user sees exactly what your internet marketing agency designed.

Improving your website’s performance can be an intensive process. Often, several changes are needed, with each improvement shaving off a few milliseconds from your loading time. However, the process is worthwhile to improve both your search engine ranking and the user’s experience on your website.

When you want a faster website, reach out to the experts at Fasturtle. Our internet marketing aficionados are ready to help your website gain new customers. Contact us today or send us an email; we look forward to hearing from you.