No matter what industry you’re in, your website’s speed is more important today than ever before. Not only can a slow website affect your user experience, but it may also have a negative impact on your search engine optimization (SEO). After all, today’s search engine algorithms are beginning to take website speed into account.
With all this in mind, now is a good time to make sure your site’s speed is optimized. Not sure where to begin? We recommend running a website speed test to see where you stand. From there, a few practical and effective tips can help you improve your speed.
1. Opt for a Dedicated Server
Start by considering your current hosting plan. If you’re on a shared or free hosting plan, it’s time to upgrade. Unfortunately, free and shared hosting options simply cannot offer the site speed that today’s users expect and demand. The best thing you can do to increase website speed, then, is to upgrade to a dedicated server.
Dedicated servers allow you to enjoy the many benefits of not having to share server resources with other users. This can improve performance, reliability, and overall page load times!
2. Enable Caching
If you haven’t enabled caching on your site already, now is the time to do it. Specifically, caching allows visitors of your website to essentially “store” your site’s information on their hard drive so that when they go to your site again in the future, the pages they have already visited will load more quickly. If you have a lot of repeat visitors to your site, this can really speed up your page load times, improving user experience and your SEO in the process.
3. Simplify Your Design
When was the last time you revisited your website’s design and coding? If it’s been more than a couple of years, then it may be time to review your site design and look for ways in which it can be simplified. After all, today’s website users tend to prefer easier-to-navigate designs and layouts.
If you aren’t familiar with web design or coding, consider hiring a professional web designer who can ensure that your site is properly simplified without losing out on important components.
4. Resize Large Photos
Having high-quality images on your site can be a great way to improve your user experience. But, if your image sizes are too large or the resolution is too high, it can slow down your website. If you’re wondering how to improve page load times, check the file sizes and dimensions of your website’s images. More than likely, you can reduce their sizes and quality to some degree without anyone noticing. And, as a result, your pages will load more quickly.
5. Delete Unnecessary Files
Finally, if you’re wondering how to optimize your website speed quickly and easily, try going through the files on your server and deleting anything that you no longer use. You can also delete any duplicate files. This will free up space on your server, which may in-turn speed up page load times.
As you can see, there are many ways you can go about improving your site’s speed without a lot of hassle. From there, you can provide your users with the quality experience they expect. Meanwhile, your SEO may also see a welcome boost!
For more information on dedicated hosting and how it can benefit your site, contact our team at ReliableSite today. We offer a wide range of customizable hosted server options to suit your needs and budget.