Have you recently checked how long your website or web pages take to load?
Google is considering adding web page speed as a search engine ranking factor. If your site doesn’t load fast enough, your rankings may drop.
Google is constantly trying to improve people’s search experience so that the results are fast and specific. Computer users get very frustrated when they have to wait more than a few seconds for their website to appear.
What does this mean for you?
Google offers a tool called “page speed” that evaluates the performance of your web pages and suggests how to improve them. Ideally, your pages should load in 30 seconds with a 56K modem and less than 2 seconds with a high-speed cable connection.
How to improve website speed
Use CSS navigation
Sites that use flash, javascript, or video to impress their visitors reduce web page load times. Search engines do not index these files. Create a CSS menu instead so search engines can crawl the links.
Use external files
Instead of having all your CSS or javascript code on your web page, put it in an external file. It will reduce code clutter and speed up your pages.
Validate html code
HTML errors prevent search engines from easily crawling your page. Google “W3C HTML Validation Service” to check and fix your html errors.
Optimize Images
If you have too many images or some large images on your web page, it will drastically reduce the loading time. Use thumbnail images and optimize them with graphics software like Photoshop or Fireworks to reduce the file size of your pages.
Use server side includes (SSI) for easy maintenance
SSI allows you to update hundreds of pages simply by editing one file instead of editing each one separately. These files need to be uploaded every time they are accessed from the server, so make sure your web server uses fast servers.
fast servers
Most web hosting servers host multiple websites on the same server. If a site suddenly receives a surge of traffic, it can overwhelm the server and your site could be temporarily offline. This means you could lose sales. Beware of companies that offer unlimited space. Look for a reliable service that guarantees 99% uptime and performs daily backups.
Static vs Database Based Sites
Static html websites tend to load faster than database based websites because database sites contain hundreds or thousands of files. Most static sites have fewer than 100 pages. Before designing or redesigning your website, check the page speed of database sites built with software like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.).
web hosting service
Most of the websites these days share the same server. If a website suddenly receives a surge in server resources, it affects all other sites on that server. Therefore, beware of web hosting companies that offer unlimited space and/or bandwidth. Check the uptime of the server your site is hosted on.
Advice
If you plan to design or redesign a website, check the page speed of websites using the hosting service and/or design software before you begin. Having a fast loading website will help you rank well in search engines, thus generating more traffic and sales.