An essential aspect of ensuring your website provides users with the best experience is performance. A slow site not only discourages users from browsing your site but also makes it more difficult for specific devices to load the website. The most popular tool for checking how well your website is performing is Google PageSpeed Insights. By comparing your site to various metrics and standards, this tool can help you optimize your website. Although it is an excellent feature, it doesn’t explain each metric. Here are a few quick ways to increase the speed of your website using Google’s Pagespeed Insights.
Image Optimization
The first optimization shown on PageSpeed Insights is image optimization. When images are downloaded from Shutterstock or the internet, their file size can be substantial. One or two unoptimized photos won’t be a problem, but as your site incorporates more pages, files, and blogs, these images can weigh down your site. Google PageSpeed Insights already includes an image optimization option after it scans your website. Third-party tools like TinyPNG can be used for easy image compression to decrease the size of the images without altering the quality.
Minify HTML, CSS, and Javascript
This optimization is a little more technical than image compression. Google PageSpeed Insights will show this recommendation if the CSS, Javascript, or HTML files referenced on your homepage aren’t minified. “Minification” is the process of compressing these files by removing things like :
- Whitespace
- Comments
- Incorrect formatting
WordPress has plugins made for optimizing these types of files such as the BWP Minify plugin and the Autoptimize plugin. The impact of different stylesheets and files can drastically affect the speed of your website.
Landing Page Redirects
This last quick recommendation isn’t as technically intense as minification. When a user clicks on a display ad on Google and is taken to your website, they can be redirected to another page entirely. In the past, it may have been a better option to create an entirely separate domain for mobile users. In actuality, separate domains like “m.amazingwebsite.com” to accommodate mobile devices is less beneficial for SEO. The majority of WordPress themes are automatically responsive and have built-in mobile support without a separate domain for mobile users.
Google PageSpeed Insights is an amazing tool for quick website optimization, but more in-depth website adjustments will also need to be considered to keep your site speed at its peak. Market My Market offers multiple web design and web development packages to make sure your site stays swift and up-to-date. Don’t be afraid to contact us if you’d like a free quote on our website services!