{"id":20304,"date":"2022-08-17T15:39:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sanctuarymg.com\/academy\/?p=20304"},"modified":"2022-08-12T15:46:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T19:46:39","slug":"quick-fixes-to-improve-website-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sanctuarymg.com\/academy\/websites\/quick-fixes-to-improve-website-speed\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Quick Fixes to Improve Website Speed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are few things in the digital sphere that are as important as website<\/a> speed. If you want to rank well in search results and impress your site visitors, your pages need to load quickly. It\u2019s just that simple. It might sound harsh, but a slow site has almost no chance to compete in the current internet landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Site speed should be at or near the top of your priority list. But how do you manage to speed up your pages without taking away from the overall quality of your site? And how do you do it without spending tons of your own time on the project? This article is going to highlight three quick fixes that can help you pick up the speed of your site almost immediately. Give one or more of these methods a try and you should see a meaningful boost in short order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assessing the Situation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t make much sense to spend time and effort on a problem that isn\u2019t actually a problem in the first place. So, before you bother going through the trouble of trying to speed up your site, you\u2019ll want to make sure it is actually slower than it should be. Perhaps the best way to do this is with the Google PageSpeed Insights tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a free tool and all you need to do is enter the URL of the page you\u2019d like to test to get started. Enter the URL for your home page and see what the results look like after you hit the \u201cAnalyze\u201d button. Near the top of the page, you will see an assessment of the Core Web Vitals metric that Google uses to evaluate site performance. This will give you a simple \u201cpassed\u201d or \u201cfailed\u201d evaluation, and you can go from there to determine if improvements are needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you wait on this page for a moment, more information will be provided that will help you gain a better understanding of what it is that is slowing the page down (if it is slow). There will be a list of opportunities and estimated time savings for how much faster the page could be if that specific point was improved. For instance, you might see \u201cproperly size images\u201d as one way to get better speeds, or \u201creduce unused JavaScript.\u201d Using this quick and easy tool will point you in the right direction and help you decide where to first point your efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Useful Fixes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With that bit of testing out of the way, it\u2019s time to get down to work on making some or all of the pages on your site faster. Be sure to think critically about how your site works and what improvements will be most impactful before you get started. You don\u2019t need to start with number one on our list; Just use these as ideas and start wherever you best see fit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

#1. Deal with Your Images<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If there is one sure way to slow down your site\u2019s pages\u2026 It\u2019s to improperly add images to those pages. Yes, images are an important piece of a website, but they can also weigh down the site and cause it to load quite slowly. As the large image files try to load along with the rest of the content, your visitors may grow impatient and simply hit the back button to look for another site to visit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a few different ways you can address images causing your site to load slowly. First, think about simply cutting down on how many images you use. Be more strategic with your image placement and pull out some that aren\u2019t really adding anything to the content. Ask yourself if each image needs to be on the page, and delete the ones that aren\u2019t boosting value for the visitor. You might find that cutting back on how many pictures you use not only speeds up your page load times, but it also might cause your pages to look cleaner and more attractive. Going through your whole site to trim pictures you don\u2019t need can be a bit of a time-consuming process but it\u2019s worth the effort for what you get in return. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, you aren\u2019t going to get rid of all of the images on your site, so this strategy will only take you so far. If there are still page speed improvements to be made after you take some pictures off the site, the next step is to optimize the ones that remain. That means enabling those pictures to load faster through a variety of means. A good place to start is to use software to compress your images to shrink down their file sizes and make them lighter to load on the page. This will be particularly useful when visitors arrive at your site on a mobile device\u2014and, since mobile devices usually account for more than half of a site\u2019s traffic, that\u2019s not a point you want to overlook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, if you run your site on WordPress<\/a>, compressing images is as simple as adding a plugin to your setup. There are many image optimization plugins available, and many of them will do their work for free. Once installed, you can tweak the settings to meet your needs and the plugin will do its magic from there. In the end, you\u2019ll be left with pictures that load quickly while still looking great. And you won\u2019t have to worry about manually dealing with this issue moving forward. When you add new images, they will automatically go through the plugin and be modified accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#2. Shrink Your Plugin Stack<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Okay, so it might seem odd to tell you to add a plugin for image optimization right before we tell you that you should cut back on how many plugins are on your WordPress site. But stick with us here\u2014this is an important point to get clear in your mind as a site owner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plugins are a great part of the WordPress<\/a> ecosystem. In fact, the robust selection of plugins available for WordPress site owners and operators is one of the best reasons to use that CMS. However, many sites go way too far with plugins and wind up hurting their performance in the end. It\u2019s important to remember that every plugin you add to your site is more code that is stacked onto the files that need to load when a visitor requests a page. Those additions can add up and wind up doing bad things to your page load times.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, should you get rid of all of your plugins? Of course not, but you do want to be picky about what you put on your site\u2014both in terms of quality and what the plugin brings to the table. In other words, only plugins that are absolutely necessary to allow your site to function correctly should be allowed to stay. Here are some examples of the types of plugins that you might want to consider eliminating:<\/p>\n\n\n\n