To make sure that yours is not one of those websites, here are a few tips on how to reduce page load times and retain your visitors:
Minimize HTTP Requests: One of the first steps that can be taken to minimize page load time is to reduce the unnecessary number of components, which in turn reduces unnecessary HTTP requests required to render the page. When a page loads, there are many components like images, style sheets, and java-scripts that need rendering and a reduction in the number of these components can help greatly. Tools like CSS Sprites and Image maps can be utilized for achieving a faster rendering page.
Add an Expires or a Cache-Control Header : Adding an expire or a cache control header in pages help browser to eliminate too many HTTP requests to the server for returning visitor, which in turn helps the page load faster in subsequent page views. By using expiry header, the cache of browser caches all components of page without sending a single HTTP request on server.
Gzip or Deflate Compression: As any SEO company would recommend, what works in the favor of quicker loading is compression of page by Gzip. Using a compression method such as Gzip or Deflate, the response time can be reduced by about seventy percent. PDF and Image files should not be Gzipped because they are already compressed. If Gzipped, they will waste CPU and increase loading time of page. Gzipping all files will reduce weight of page and accelerate the user experience. For IIS server, follow the Microsoft TechNet instructions and use follwing code in .htaccess file for Apache server to enable Gzip compression for your website.
Put Stylesheets at the Top: In order to allow the page to render in a progressive way, it works in your favor to put style sheets to the document head. Progressive means that the browser will display first, whatever content is available to it. Putting style sheets on the top facilitates this process.
Put Scripts at the Bottom: Placing JavaScript at the bottom allows the browser to render all the content of webpage fast and its JavaScript can be loaded later in parallel to other elements of WebPages. Defer tag can be used on those javascripts which are used after complete loading of website such as form validation or pop-up image.
Minify JavaScript and CSS: Going one step further, another recommendation would be to try and minify JavaScript and CSS by removing the unnecessary characters from code. This helps in making the code lighter and cleaner, which again, facilitates load times.
Remove Duplicate Scripts: Get rid of any scripts that are duplicates. Including the same JavaScript file more than once in a page really hurts the performance and needs to be avoided at all cost.
Split Components Across Domains: Another tip in order to get your pages loading faster is to spilt components to sub-domains for parallel downloading. In the first instance, be aware of what are the main components required to render the page and just go with those. The rest of the components can be post loaded from sub-domains.
Reduce Cookie Size: In order to minimize the impact on the response time of the user, it is imperative that the size of the cookies is as small as possible. Also, eliminate all unnecessary cookies and set them at a domain level that is appropriate and doesn't affect other sub-domains.
Optimize Images: Finally, optimize the images with CSS sprites. This can be done by arranging the images in the sprite horizontally as opposed to vertically, as well as combining similar colors in the sprite.
ConclusionReducing page load time will increase user experience of first time as well as returning visitor on your website. It also reduces bounce time of pages and increase page-views of internal pages. Search engines like Google also consider it for ranking pages on SERP. Let us know, how load time of website is reduced by implementing above 10 steps in website or contact our seo team to reduce the page load time of website.
