Nobody likes their browsing experience ruined by pages that are slow to load or images that take forever to appear. Save your (potential) customers the frustration and keep things running smoothly. A fast website not only improves the user experience, it also earns you a higher ranking in search engines like Google and encourages visitors to follow through with what you want them to do. This is known as conversion and can range from filling in a contact form or buying a product from your webshop to subscribing to a newsletter or installing an app. 

Monitoring tools

This should be self-evident. The online experience depends heavily on minimal latency and limited data usage, especially for mobile users. Even if this isn’t a priority for you right now, it’s still wise to keep a close eye on your site’s performance. An explosion of content, new features, technological advances, and updates all affect performance. But don’t take our word for it. There are plenty of (free) tools out there to help you gain insights into the speed and optimisation potential of your website.

For example, Google PageSpeed Insights gives you concrete recommendations based on a thorough analysis of your load times, while GTmetrix and WebPageTest focus on site performance across different locations and networks. With Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools, you can run audits to measure core web vitals, such as the upload speed of key content, the responsiveness of user interactions (FID), and layout stability during loading (CLS).

Limit your external dependencies

Laggy or lazy?

Does this all sound a bit too technical? No worries! Making your site faster and more accessible doesn’t have to be hard. Your images are a good place to start. Large files are often the cause of laggy web pages. This makes sense, as they need to be downloaded on every visit, which takes time. By optimising your images in advance and saving them in modern formats like WebP or AVIF, you’ll notice an immediate difference. Lazy loading – where images only load when they come into view – can also help, but overuse can lead to the opposite effect and lower your user experience. Another tip is to limit your external dependencies. Fonts and tracking pixels can slow down loading, especially if they’re hosted externally. By storing them locally, you can avoid unnecessary delays.

Follow the script

With spring blooming, many people are planning a deep clean. Why not do the same for your digital space? Over time, websites gather unnecessary plug-ins and scripts that can slow things down. Take a critical look at which features you really need and get rid of everything else. Caching also plays a vital role. Server-side caching helps with content that doesn’t change often, while browser caching ensures that images and scripts are stored locally, making them load faster on repeat visits. 

Content delivery networks (CDNs) can help speed up the distribution of static assets, while minimising and bundling large CSS, HTML and JavaScript files can also make an impact. Hosting and server configuration are also crucial. Fast hosting with support for HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 significantly improves performance, as does optimising database queries to avoid unnecessary requests.

Need for speed

In short, when it comes to monitoring and improving your website’s speed and user-friendliness, there’s a lot you can do. The key is to test continuously and resolve problems as soon as you discover them. It all starts with the platform you use. WordPress can be fast, but background scripts for tracking visitors or conversions can seriously slow things down. And how fast is fast enough? A good website should load in 2.5 to 3 seconds. Anything faster is better, but it’s important to weigh whether the investment is worth the benefit. 

Want to know how your website stacks up and what can be improved? Stop by for a coffee and a chat. We’ll listen to your needs and help you come up with a solid, long-term plan that is targeted and lightning fast.