Page loading speed – how to improve it?

Why is page loading speed important?

Page loading speed is the time a website needs to fully display its contents. It’s a key factor that strongly affects user experience, the site’s position in SERP and an overall page’s efficiency. The faster a site loads, the better impression it gives. Also - the chance that a certain user will not leave, but will search the website and find what they’re looking for gets higher. It naturally translates into conversion. All the signals sent by the user are automatically read by search engine’s algorithms. The search engine monitors a site’s loading speed and takes it into account when it comes to ranking in SERP. That’s why page loading speed matters not only for users, but for search engines, too.

When it comes to page loading speed, it’s important to mention two key parameters:

Bounce rate - it defines how fast users bounce back to results page, discouraged by a bad first impression with a certain website. It may be caused by poor quality of site’s content, slow loading speed or ugly layout.

Dwell time - it defines how much time users have spent on our website. Counted from the moment the user enters a website from SERP until they leave it. The higher dwell time, the better, of course.

What affects website’s loading speed?

Page loading speed is affected by numerous factors. Let’s take a look at them.

Page resources size. Mostly pictures and graphics that are not optimized, meaning they’re simply too big and it takes too much time to load them. What also counts is Java scripts. CSS stylesheets. Potentially, the more resources to load, the more it takes to load them - if they’re not wisely optimized.

Too many scripts and plug-ins. It speaks for itself - the more of these, the longer a website takes to load. Simple. Do not apply too many of these, especially if not necessary.

Website’s server issues. Insufficient resources or its overload. It affects the server's work and may cause page loading speed problems.

No cache optimization. It may force a website to download the same resources every single time it’s visited.

Inefficient hosting.

Network issues. A website’s loading speed issue may be also caused by the user's poor Internet connection.

External resources. If a website uses external resources such as ads, analytics, fonts and they have a long response time, it may take longer to load the website.

Internet users are impatient in general. It’s mostly caused by the fact that they live in a hurry, need to find much information in a short period of time and are generally stressed. We have no influence on such factors, but what we can do is try to improve the quality of our website. Most users leave a website that loads really slow after only 3 to 5 seconds. That’s a really short time, isn’t it? This is why we need to focus on optimizing the page's loading speed, so that we won’t lose too many users just because our site loads too slow. We can have great content, useful graphs, awesome links - but if our site loads slow, it really does not matter for an average user.

How page loading speed influences SEO and UX

A page’s loading speed has a direct impact on UX - user experience. Websites that load fast have higher chances to keep the user and increase their engagement. Search engines take the loading speed factor when ranking sites in the search engine results page. Slow-loading pages may be punished by taking low positions in SERP.

Google’s algorithms focus on page loading speed. Systems such as PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS) evaluate and report a site’s efficiency in terms of loading speed and other factors that concern user experience. LCP counts the time from opening the website to when the biggest portion of content is loaded and displayed. FID counts the time from the user's first interaction with the site to when the search engine reacts to this interaction. CLS verifies how unstable the site’s system is when the site is loading.

How to shorten the page loading speed?

Lucky for us, page loading speed is a factor that we can improve. What should we do to shorten it, then?

Resource compression. Compressing files, CSS and JavaScripts may reduce their size and fasten page loading speed.

Caching. Using cache mechanisms to store data on user’s computer may fasten page’s loading speed when it comes to next visits.

Using CDN. Content Delivery Network enables data distribution from servers that are closer to users.

Server optimization. Faster SSD, for instance.

Choosing a better hosting.

Regular speed tests. Thanks to them we can monitor our page’s performance regularly and implement corrective actions.

How to measure page loading speed?

You can use several tools to measure page loading speed.

Google PageSpeed Insights

GTmetrix

WebPageTest

Lighthouse

Dareboost

Pingdom Website Speed Test

It’s best to use Google’s tools above all. They’re the most trustworthy and reliable. Remember to test your site’s speed like you were to examine your health - sometimes it’s good to receive feedback from a few doctors. Thus it’s worth testing your site with two or three tools.

Summing up…

Page loading speed is a key factor that influences your users’ experience. It automatically translates to how search engines view your site, positioning the site higher or lower in SERP. It’s worth taking some time and resources to optimize your site’s loading speed to please both users and search engines. Remember to use a few tools and compare the results before implementing certain actions and corrective strategies. Good luck making your site load faster!