reduce waiting time

We all want everything to be fast, right? We have so many tasks to do, and so little time. Thus, speed is important in websites. Internet users do not have all day to browse for answers. I will not dive into jargons and bombard you with heavy technological terms. In this post, I shall teach you a few easy tips and tricks to help your website load faster.

• Tip #1: Always compress your images.

Vivid imagery is essential, but the sad truth is images also take up more page size than texts. When your website has a huge page size, it means it will take time to load. I am not saying that you should remove all images. You have to reduce the images’ file size or reduce its resolution. Like for example, a picture with a 1280 x 768 resolution is unnecessary. Yes, for a wallpaper, it will do. That is not needed in a blog post.

• Tip #2: Simplify your theme.

Choose a fast and simple theme. All the beautiful user interface and colorful design will be useless if you have a website that does not load immediately. No matter how visually pleasing your design is, it will definitely annoy visitors if the site is slow. I suggest you keep it simple first and then, little by little, add something to optimize and enhance the look.

• Tip #3: Clean up your website.

As you post numerous articles in your website, you will gain followers… and you will acquire a lot of junk. Like your house, you also have to constantly clean your website. The post drafts can take up space. If you have more than twenty revisions, you better clean those up. Another one that you could do is to delete those spam comments. Ten copies of the same comment are totally redundant. Anything that is not required should be eliminated. A little dusting can boost your website. No need to be pack rat!

• Tip #4: Remove unused images, plugins, themes.

This tip is related to the previous one. Over time you will upgrade your website so those previously used images, plugins, and themes should be removed. Those images that you uploaded, whether you use them in a post or not, will consume your website’s space. It is better to say goodbye to those unattached pictures. For plugins, you have to deactivate it first and get rid of the ones you do not utilize anymore. If you are already using a new theme, there is no need for you to keep the old one. Out with the old, in with the new.

• Tip #5: Organize your homepage.

Shorten your posts. Do not show the full post immediately on your homepage. Provide only a snippet of what viewers can expect. Limit the posts you will show in one page. There is always a “next” button or a “show more” option that visitors can click. Do not bombard them with all the information right away.

After applying all those tips, you can use a tool called Pingdom to test your website’s speed. You just have to enter your website’s address (or URL) and ─ viola! ─ you can see the results right away. It is very easy to understand. “A” is the highest score a website can get. You will also see the page size there. If your images are not compressed, it will reflect. Loading time is also indicated. You will know how long it will take for your website to load in seconds.