Web pages that take between 1–2 seconds to load have the best ecommerce conversion rates. Site speed is good for business and it’s good for SEO. Search engine algorithms are known to heavily emphasize site speed, making it a critical ranking factor.
Many factors play into pages load times, but there are a few key measures you can implement to improve site speed.
Optimize image sizes. Large, uncompressed images can significantly afghanistan phone number list slow down page load times. Compressing images without compromising their visual quality can make a substantial difference. Additionally, implementing “lazy loading” for images can further improve perceived page speed by only loading images as users scroll down the page.
Leverage browser caching. By storing frequently accessed resources (such as images, CSS, and JavaScript files) in a browser’s cache, page loads can be significantly accelerated. According to Romero, this is crucial: “Several ecommerce sites I’ve worked with are plagued by heavy CSS and JavaScript files, which slow down the rendering process and site experience. A way around this is to understand what resources are critical in presenting an optimal user experience and either consolidating, removing, or deferring unnecessary CSS or JS code.”
Avoid redirects. Redirects add an additional step to the page loading process and they can increase page load times. Consider consolidating multiple redirects into a single one, or eliminating unnecessary redirects to help enhance page speed.
Choose a reliable hosting provider. Much of your uptime and site speed depends on your hosting provider — the company that owns and operates the servers, data centers, and other infrastructure that make it possible to host your site online. Choosing a trusted, reliable hosting provider is vital when it comes to site speed, user experience, and ecommerce SEO.