How to Improve Your Site Speed?
Site speed is important as it is one of the most important determinants of user experience on a website. Users expect websites to load quickly and easily, and will switch to a competitor's website if yours is too slow. % of consumers expect a website to load in 2 seconds, do the math: if your website takes longer to load, you're losing users. This is why page speed is such an integral part of user experience and why finding ways to optimize your site's speed is crucial.
Factors that determine your website's page load time:
To achieve fast page load time, you need to optimize your website for SEO and improve user experience to ultimately increase conversions.
1. SEO
Your page load speed is a key factor in determining your ranking in Google Search. SEO plays a crucial role in determining not only your traffic but also your conversions. Google will not rank a website on page 1 if the overall website speed is slow.
2. User Experience
User experience is the most important factor in determining page load time. Speeding up your websites improves visitor satisfaction and makes them come back more often, resulting in a higher hit rate (visits/visits) and higher conversion rates (conversions/visits) in the long run.
3. Conversions
Websites that load super fast also get the most conversions. Websites that load slowly are unlikely to convert first-time visitors into potential customers. The number of conversions your website receives is directly related to page load speed. Research shows that you can increase your conversion rates by 20% if you can reduce your page load time to less than two seconds. A one second delay in page load has been shown to result in a 7% decrease in customer satisfaction, which then translates to 11% Reduction in customer purchases.
Do Ads Affect Website Speed?
When it comes to ads and website performance, it's not as simple as ads making the page load slower or faster. It depends on the type of ads you use, how many your site has and how efficient the ad networks are. They are the ones posting these ads. It's also important to consider factors like ad unit type and ad placements when determining page load speed. Poorly optimized ads can slow down a website's loading speed. However, poorly implemented ads are not the main problem.
Ad networks that are not optimized for website speed can also adversely affect a webpage's speed.
How To Improve Your Ad Speed?
Here are five ways to improve the ad speed on your site:
Configure Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is a method in which ads are only displayed when the user is in that specific section or content area of your website. It's at the bottom of the site.
Ad Passbacks
Passbacks or waterfalls increase ad latency and drops the ad viewability. Try to avoid or limit the number of passbacks you have in palace.
Inline CSS
HTML best practices tell us that calling an external CSS file is the best way to maintain a good content-to-code ratio. However, if you're looking for speed, your best bet is to create an archive to host your ads. Break up the CSS by using a separate inline CSS for top-of-the-page (ATF) ad placements. Code the ad to load faster instead of calling an external CSS file that requires an additional HTTP request before it's displayed.
Reduce Image Size
Minimize your images. Optimize them for maximum speed. For example, on mobile sites, it's a good idea to keep elements under 1000 bytes for the best user experience. There are options in plugins and apps that you can use to reduce the size of your images.
Avoid Slow Ad Networks
Many keep their ad networks optimized and running fast, but not all. This could reduce user experience on the website and advertising revenue. Internet congestion between your website and an ad network that occurs from time to time can cause latency and slow ad delivery. Once you identify the ad network causing slow page loads, stop running them or limit their use as much as possible.
Conclusion
Having a slow site sucks and it is going to cost your business. If you care about your online presence prioritize your site speed and use tools such as PageSpeed Insights tool to measure site speed and make the necessary adjustments.