How long do you wait for a website to load ? I’m sure you hop to another, if it takes more than a couple of blinks of your eye. Nobody likes to visit a website that takes ages to load. There are a lot of surveys which talk about people leaving websites if it takes more than like 2-4 seconds to load. There are a gazillion reasons as to why your website is loading slow. Some are in your hands while others are not. In this post today, I’ll try to throw some light on some basic things you can do to Improve Page Speed and Speed Up your Blog.
How to Improve Page Speed and Speed Up Blog
Now, there are like hundreds of websites and tools out there that will tell you how fast or slow your website is. And trust me, you’ll be confused even if you see a couple of them. Some rate on a scale of 10, while others on a scale of 100. Some websites say your website is loading just fine while other mark it spam. So not going too much into all those numbers in this post. As said will just talk about a few tips that you can employ to Improve page speed of your blog / website.
Compress Images before use
Let’s all agree that nobody likes to visit a website that doesn’t have pictures. I agree that there are niches that don’t require images, but still having a couple of images can keep your readers interested. However if there are a lot of images on your website / blog, then you should ensure to compress them before adding them. If you upload uncompressed images, it takes more time for the images to load thus slowing down the website. If you are on WordPress, you can use SmushIt to compress the images to some extent and in turn speed up blog.
Say No To Popups
I know you have amazing stories that will be delivered to my inbox, but that doesn’t mean there’s a pop-up on every page ! Popups or Interstitial are a great way to grab the reader’s attention. But at times, they contribute to slowing down of your website. Many a times, if you simply copy / paste code from the internet or use a buggy plugin, there are high chances that the pop-up would be running some scripts in the background thus slowing down your website. All I would say is, reduce the number of popups and see the page speed improve. Speed Up Blog with this tip.
Optimize JavaScript
If you are new to websites and blogging, then let me tell you, the Internet runs on JavaScript. No matter what website you visit, it will run JavaScript. Even Google Analytics uses JavaScript, so you know it plays a vital role. Anyways, if you are using a lot of JavaScript files in your websites, there are high chances that it will slow down your website. Why ? Well the browser will call each and every script thus it will eventually be spending more time in running the JavaScript code rather than your actual content. Comes in the concept of Minify. Minify is nothing but combining many JavaScript files into one single file and/or removing all the unnecessary spaces from the file thus reducing its size. If you are or WordPress, plugins like Total Cache, W3 Cache will help you improve page speed and speed up blog.
Reduce HTTP Requests
Everyone loves to show off their achievements. Many websites you visit have a list of achievements in terms of badges on the sidebar. But if you carefully examine, most of the badges have an underlying JavaScript code that would be making a http request. This code might either refresh the badge or simply connect to the service provider. Even those social plugins – Facebook Like Box. Instagram photos etc., all of this contribute to slowing down of your websiteย if the page makes a lot of http requests. Simple reason being that they connect to external sites, and if for some reason there’s an issue at the other end, your site may suffer. There’s no harm in having a handful of badges, but too many will reduce the speed of your website.
Leverage Browser Cache
Lastly, if you are a newbie, let me introduce to this wonderful concept of caching. What happens is that every time you visit a website, some of the data from that website is cached (downloaded) and stored on your local browser. So the next time you visit the website, the website will look for a cache. If found, it will load the cache contents from your browser and remaining from your website. This will greatly improve page speed and Speed Up Blog. Again, if you are on WordPress, caching plugins I mentioned earlier will be helpful.
So that was a basic guide to Improve Page Speed and Speed up Blog. This guide is meant to be for newbies and amateurs. If you are a pro, you might already know these tips. You should ideally be exploring things like CDNs and Advanced Caching and HTTP requests. Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure that if you focus on these points, you will surely improve page speed of your website. If you think this is helpful, give this a like and share it with your friends. If not, mention in the comments below anything that I’ve missed. For everything else, tweet to me at @atulmaharaj
โIโm taking my blog to the next level with BlogChatter and #MyFriendAlexaโ
I have always loved reading your blogs. Very useful for a technically challenged person like me!
Great work!
Ps: You have a cupcake ad in your page..I like that! ๐
Thanks a lot Sushmitaji for dropping my, I’m glad you found this useful.
These are some great tips! I am liking this series of yours for for #Alexa as they are educational and simple to understand
Thanks Nehaji ๐
These are some great tips! I am liking your series and it’s educative and simple to understand.
Thanks Nehaji,I’m glad you found this informative.
Very helpful post, Atulji! Sharing it right away.
Thanks Preethiji ๐
Did not know that instafeed on blog page reduces its speed. Gonna get rid of it right now! Thank for the info you provided!
It does contribute in lowering the speed. Glad you found this useful.
Yup! And followed the tip as well ??