5 Tips for Faster Website Loading Speeds

1. Consider Your Hosting Provider

It’s possible that your website has outgrown the hosting service you started it on. The amount of traffic it receives could be better handled by a more robust hosting solution, especially if your site has amassed a large following and has high search engine rankings. For example, if you currently use a shared hosting plan, switching to a dedicated server will improve loading speeds immediately. Do some research into alternative hosts and read reviews written by their users. Get in touch with these companies directly and ask them how their services could help with your current traffic load, as well as any future plans you have to expand your website’s reach and functionality.

2. Compression Is Key

Compressing your website’s files is one of the surest ways to improve its loading speed. Doing so reduces the size of requests on your server and allows them to take place faster. Gzip compression is one of the most popular options available today, as it’s applicable to a wide range of hosting and content management platforms. There are also many simple coding changes that you can make to your website’s .htaccess or PHP files that will help with file compression. Be sure to also look into the selection of compression plugins that are available for your content management system. WordPress, for instance, offers a large number of free and paid plugins that will handle all of your compression needs.

3. Have A Mobile-Friendly Design

Most of the visitors your website receives are probably coming from mobile devices. This makes it vitally important that your website is optimized specifically for these visitors, as trying to load the desktop version of your site on their mobile devices will be slow and irritating for them. Converting your website to a mobile design is the perfect way to improve loading speeds, while also providing a convenient experience for your visitors.

4. Optimize Your Site’s Images

Images are one of the most common causes of slow loading speeds. They often contain excess code or are sized larger than is necessary, which leads to larger, slower requests on your servers. The simplest way to fix this is by keeping images as small as possible without affecting their quality, eliminating clunky code around them and saving them to your servers in JPEG format.

5. Remove Unused Plugins And Extensions

It can be easy to forget that old, unused plugins and extensions you installed on your website in the past are actually still active. These forgotten plugins can create considerable lags in loading times. Take some time to look through any add-ons you’ve installed for your website and completely remove any that you no longer use.

Doing even these simple things will ensure that your website will load quickly for everyone who visits it. When you have the fastest loading time possible, you set yourself up for long-term success with your online marketing campaigns.