The Impact of Page Load Speed & Tips To Improve It

One crucial factor that continues to significantly influence user experience (UX) is page load speed. We know that users are impatient, and nobody likes waiting for a page to load! With more online competition than ever, customers are unlikely to stick around for a long time and wait for your website to load, when another competitor brand might offer them a better, quicker experience. 

As such, the need for developers to optimise page speed has become more critical than ever. With brands investing thousands in online advertising, the pressure is on the developers to make sure the landing pages – and wider website – are being served immediately to potential customers. In this article, we take a look at the potential impact of page load speed and provide an insight into the tips and tricks we regularly employ to keep page load speed time as quick as possible for our clients.

The Importance of Page Load Speed.

Firstly, a definition. Page load speed refers to the time it takes for a web page to fully display its content. This broad, top-level metric is broken down into a whole subset of more detailed, more specific metrics such as time-to-first-byte, first contentful paint, DOM content loaded, and much, much more. However, for ease of reference in this blog we’re just talking about top-level “page load speed” as being the time taken for the page to fully load in and display to the user.

This seemingly straightforward metric has profound implications for user experience, conversion rates, and even search engine rankings. Studies consistently show that faster websites lead to higher engagement, reduced bounce rates, and improved user satisfaction. As a result, it’s understandable that crawlbots from Google and Bing seek to prioritise and reward those websites who are serving a quicker, smoother experience to their users. To quantify this, a Google study found that as page load time goes from one to three seconds, the probability of a site visitor bouncing increases by 32%.

Impacts of Slow Page Load Speed.

It’s all well and good us saying that page load times are important, but what are the key reasons we think you should use if you’re making a case to your boss about why your business should invest in optimising your website’s speed.

1. User Frustration and High Bounce Rates: Slow-loading pages can frustrate users, leading them to abandon the site in search of faster alternatives. 
2. Lower Conversion Rates: Every additional second of load time can result in significant drops in conversion rates. For e-commerce sites, this translates to lost sales and revenue, and for lead-gen sites, this is the difference between a lead you can pass to your sales team or a lead that dropped out of the funnel.
3. Reduced User Engagement: Users are less likely to engage with content, explore additional pages, or share information from a slow-loading site.
4. SEO: Search engines prioritise fast-loading websites in their rankings. Particularly slow websites may find themselves pushed down in search results, reducing organic traffic.

Understanding Page Speed Insights.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights is one of the easiest and best tools for assessing your website’s performance (and importantly, it’s free!). It provides a comprehensive analysis of both mobile and desktop versions of your site, offering scores and suggestions for improvement. The tool evaluates several key metrics, including:

• First Contentful Paint (FCP): The time it takes for the first piece of content to appear on the screen.
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): The time it takes for the largest content element to be visible.
• First Input Delay (FID): The time it takes for the page to become interactive.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): The visual stability of the page, ensuring elements don’t shift unexpectedly during load.

Strategies to Improve Page Load Speed.

Improving page load speed involves a combination of front-end and back-end optimisations, and can be quite a complex process. However, there are always a shortlist of regular tasks that we look to complete when we’re tasked with speeding up a website. 

1) Optimise Images:

Compression: Use tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim to compress images without compromising quality as well as serving them in WebP format.

Responsive Images: Serve appropriately sized images based on the user’s device using the srcset attribute.

2) Minimise HTTP Requests:

Combine Files: Consolidate CSS and JavaScript files to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

Use Sprites: Combine multiple images into a single sprite and use CSS to display the relevant parts.

3) Leverage Browser Caching:

Set Expiry Headers: Configure your server to instruct browsers to cache static assets for a specified duration.

Cache-Control Headers: Use these headers to manage caching policies and improve load times for returning visitors.

4) Implement Content Delivery Networks (CDNs):

Distribute Content: Use CDNs like Cloudflare or Akamai to distribute content across multiple servers worldwide, reducing latency. We’d say this is really only relevant if your website is serving a global user base, and that it’s crucial your website is loading quickly for users in multiple regions.

Edge Servers: Serve content from the server closest to the user, speeding up load times.

5) Optimise CSS and JavaScript:

Minify and Compress: Remove unnecessary characters, whitespace, and comments to reduce file sizes.

Asynchronous Loading: Use async and defer attributes to load JavaScript files without blocking the rendering of the page.

6) Server Optimisation:

Upgrade Hosting: Ensure your hosting solution can handle your site’s traffic and performance needs. Far too often we see clients that are willing to spend thousands on improving their website’s speed, but they’ve taken out the cheapest possible hosting solution on an outdated, under-performing server.

Enable Gzip Compression: Compress text-based resources like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to reduce their size during transfer.

7) Reduce Server Response Time:

Optimise Database Queries: Refactor slow queries and use indexing to speed up database interactions.

Use a Fast DNS Provider: Choose a reliable DNS provider to reduce DNS lookup times.

8) Lazy Loading:

Defer Offscreen Images: Implement lazy loading to load images and other media only when they are about to enter the viewport.

9) Monitor and Test Regularly:

Use Performance Monitoring Tools: Regularly use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Lighthouse to monitor and analyse performance.

Conclusion.

Page load speed is a critical component of UX that directly affects user satisfaction, engagement, and conversion rates. By utilising tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights and implementing the optimisation strategies that it outlines – combined with some of the tips and tricks we’ve listed here, we can create faster, more efficient websites that perform better for our clients. 

We offer various services focusing on improving page load speeds as well as the scores and metrics that Google values so highly for page rankings. Get in touch with our team here and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.