How fast does your website load? Have you tested it?
Page speed can have a direct effect on your website’s SEO, user experience and conversion rates.
Why is site speed important?
SEO rankings – A very slow load time can be a negative ranking factor. Faster sites will rank higher on Google, meaning they’ll be easier for new patients to find you.
User experience / Bounce rate – Poorly performing sites that render slowly in a browser can drive people away. Patients are likely to close the window or click away if a page does not load within a few seconds.
Conversion rate – Not only do more users stay on faster loading sites, they also convert at higher rates.
What factors affect site speed?
Website hosting – Slow response times from your website’s server can increase your page speed. With high-quality hosting, loading speeds will not be an issue.
Plugins – WordPress plugins are great for adding advanced functionality to your website and can also improve your site speed. However, make sure you’re selective about what plugins you use. Too many at once will overwhelm your server which could affect your speed and potentially break the site.
Browsers – The browser you’re using can affect the speed at which websites load. Older versions of browsers may struggle to load certain code because they’re not compatible so make sure that the most recent version of your browser is being used.
Images and videos – The larger your file sizes are, and the more files you have on a page, the longer it will take for the page to load. It’s important to therefore optimise your images as much as you can. A smaller image file can improve your page speed.
Simple ways to improve site speed
Responsive Images – Make sure you’re using responsive images. That means your website isn’t wasting time loading a desktop-sized image for your mobile website.
Convert images to WebP – Use WebP image format instead of jpg, png or gif. This format is much faster loading without losing any image quality.
Caching – Caching is when a browser saves a version of your webpage, so that when you go back to it you don’t have to reload the entire thing all over again. This can hugely speed up your website.
Minify JavaScript and CSS code – Minifying JavaScript and CSS code involves removing unnecessary characters, comments, and spacing from the code. Doing this can dramatically improve page speed.
Simplify redirects – Streamlining your redirects will remove unnecessary steps and make sure you’re moving patients to an appropriate page faster.
At Dental Design we’re constantly working on website performance improvements. If you have any questions give one of the team a call on, 01202 677277.