What’s Hurting Your Site Speed (and How to Fix It)

People who aren’t directly involved with website development or design often confuse site speed and page speed, which is understandable! But it is very important to know the difference between the two if you want to help improve your website’s SEO. Google uses both site speed and page speed to rank pages in search engine results.

Page speed is an expression of how long it takes for a single web page’s content to load. Site speed measures how quickly the content of a sample of multiple web pages on a given website loads. With these explanations in mind, it’s easy to see that your page speed will influence your site speed. 

Like page speed, site speed has an impact on user experience. UX is yet another factor Google uses to rank websites in SERPs, making it even more important for you to improve your site speed whenever possible.

Various factors can cause your page speed and thus your site speed to drag. Luckily, fixing these issues is relatively painless if you work with a partner like our award-winning web design agency that has the skills and experience to identify and remedy them.

Your Files Are Too Big

If your CSS, HTML or JavaScript files are over 150 bytes, they’re too big to load quickly. Compressing your files should help your site load faster. 

Similarly, your image files should also be compressed and formatted properly to ensure they load as fast as possible. Graphics are generally best as PNGs while photos should be in JPEG format.

Your Code Isn’t Optimized

If the code behind your website isn’t optimized, it can have a noticeable, albeit inadvertent impact on how fast your site will load. Google suggests using CSSNano and/or UglifyJS to optimize your code by removing frivolous characters, unnecessary code, useless formatting, and pointless comments.

Your Site Has Too Many Redirects

Redirects are the equivalent of site slayers when it comes to loading speed. Redirects for additional HTTP requests so a response cycle can wrap itself up can cause your website’s load speed to lag dramatically. Examine your webpages to identify instances where you can reduce or eliminate redirects to decrease the time it takes for your website to load.

Your Server’s Response Time Isn’t Ideal

Ideally, your server’s response time should be less than 200ms. If it’s not, you should look for opportunities to speed things up. Glacier-like database queries, a shortage of memory, and routing that may as well be at a standstill are common issues that negatively influence server response time. If you encounter any of these issues, fix them as soon as possible to allow your site to load faster.

You’re Not Partnered with the Right SEO Agency

SEO and improving your site speed go hand in hand in today’s mobile-first world. If you didn’t partner with the right SEO agency, your site speed might be lacking. As we mentioned earlier, our agency has won coveted awards for our work in web design and development. Contact NW Media Collective Inc. to learn what we can do to improve your site speed today.