About Page Loading Speed
The Need For Speed
I don’t know about you but I hate slow loading websites... and so do most of your potential customers. Delays in page loading speeds are extremely frustrating because customers are typically busy and even stressed when searching for what they need online. Many people have a low tolerance for page loading speed and will often leave the website if there is any delay.
A website that is slow to load on a desktop can take even longer on a mobile. More and more people are using mobiles and tablets to access the internet and these devices have relatively slow internet connection speeds when used over 3G. The lower processing power of these devices also means they are easily overloaded by over-complicated websites. It doesn't matter how beautiful the website’s design is or how amazing your photographs are if the time to load is annoying.
To add to the importance of page loading speed, Google has now declared that it plays a significant role in how they rank websites in search results! Use the PageSpeed tool now to get a report for your website. I am passionate about making the web faster and will get your website scoring into the ninties.
Why are so many websites so bloated and slow? When a business starts the process of getting a website built with a web development firm, the typical web development firm gets their graphic designer to come up with a design the business is happy with. Obviously a website is not a printed sheet and this situation sets the tone of the project with very little thought normally going into how to make the website as user friendly as possible and as fast as possible. Developers are assigned to turn the design into a website even if it’s not a very user friendly or efficient design. Little regard is taken to coding the website in a way that will optimise it for speed. While it is important to have an aesthetically pleasing website, this objective can easily be achieved when building lightweight, responsive websites. With today’s network technology there really is no excuse for slow websites.
My typical client has a website created with Wordpress, a bloated piece of software written in PHP, a slow and poorly designed programming language. Wordpress was originally built as a blogging platform not for a business’ website. Websites were never supposed to be edited in a WYSIWYG editor by a non-technical person but by a competent webmaster editing the HTML. Content Management Systems do allow non-webmasters to update content but at a cost that is not just financial. Wordpress sites are often hacked and cost more to build but the major cost is counted in regards to the page loading time of the website making the website frustrating to use, costing you conversions and causing you to be unnecessarily penalised by Google.
Websites Can Load Quickly!
Fortunately if you have a Wordpress website I can still optimise the page loading speeds significantly and get them to an acceptable level. If you are after a website with rapid page loading speeds like this website you should get a competent web developer like me to hand code you one using a minimum of backend code such as PHP.
Just as important is what happens when the page starts being served to the customer. Most webpages are far slower than they have to be. Understanding how webpages are downloaded and displayed is key to optimising their loading speed. If a developer does not know about minifying CSS or thinks it’s OK to link to half a dozen external CSS and JS files you might want to reconsider using them.
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="theme.css">
</head>
Creating a Great User Experience
It doesn't matter how flashy your javascript menu is if it’s annoying to use or doesn't work properly on a Motorola phone or an Apple iPad. Resize your browser window while viewing this website to see an example of a responsive website design that adapts to different devices. The user interface should be simple and intuitive to use. Users should not have to ask themselves “Where do I find x?” Keep in mind that the page should also be easy to navigate for the Googlebot as it adds your website to its database. When I do a free analysis of your website your report will contain a comprehensive rundown on speed issues and user interface issues all in an easy to understand format.
Global desktop search engine stats from January 2015 to August 2015:
| Search Engine | Market Share |
|---|---|
| Google - Global | 65.55% |
| Baidu | 14.33% |
| Bing | 9.21% |
| Yahoo - Global | 8.67% |
| AOL - Global | 0.59% |
| Ask - Global | 0.22% |
| Lycos - Global | 0.01% |
| Other | 1.42% |
Source: NetMarketShare
Global mobile/tablet search engine stats from January 2015 to August 2015:
| Search Engine | Market Share |
|---|---|
| Google - Global | 92.03% |
| Yahoo - Global | 5.37% |
| Bing | 1.93% |
| Baidu | 0.38% |
| Ask - Global | 0.07% |
| AOL - Global | 0.02% |
| Other | 0.21% |
Source: NetMarketShare