How fast websites improve user experiences
So you’ve decided to increase traffic to your website? Great! Maybe you’re looking at programmatic advertising, Facebook ads, or you’re using word of mouth to get people to visit your website.
Getting traffic to your website is great. But when people type in your domain or click on your Google listing, they need something to keep them there. Great content goes a long way, but did you know people could leave your site before they even see what you have to offer?
This is because if a site doesn’t load as quickly as the user expects, they’ll drop off before they see those awesome, high-resolution photos of your restaurant’s newest dish. So how do you make sure users are making it to your content? We’ve compiled a list of ways to improve your user experience by improving page speed.
Prospecting your own website
There are plenty of services available that help you identify choke points on your website. Google PageSpeed Insights is the most accessible of these services.
Google PageSpeed Insights analyzes all the content on your site and tells you how to improve your site speed. Common culprits with easy fixes are pictures being too big and avoiding redirects. Google PageSpeed Insights tells you what images on your website are causing issues, and tells you how to swap them out. This makes it really easy to selectively change content to optimize.
Sometimes you’ll have issues such as render blocking, server speed, and needing to minify CSS or JavaScript. These issues can be a bit more difficult to deal with. But if you have any questions, you can always reach out and contact us.
Taking advantage of AMP
Building a new website gives or using a content management system (CMS)—such as WordPress—gives you more options to increase speed. That’s because you can take advantage of something called Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). A new website can be built from the ground up for AMP, but many WordPress plugins support AMP.
Two good plugins we’ve used in the past are AMP for WP – Accelerated Mobile Pages and AMP. There’s more plugins available, and some support additional plugins or pages. Keep these things in mind when you’re looking for the best solution for your site.
Make sure you ask questions about AMP and page speed when shopping for a web developer. Google is promoting content that loads fast. Contact us at any time to see how we can help your page load faster.
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