3 simple ways to supercharge your website’s speed right now

Did you know that website speed is now officially one of the search signals Google uses when ranking websites for SEO? With this in mind, it’s easy to see why a slow website can compromise more than just the user experience. If you’re looking to make sure your site is fully optimised for SEO, try making these 3 simple tweaks right now to get it right up to speed.

1. Compress larger files

It just makes sense that the smaller the files on your website’s server, the faster the page will load. We’re not talking about images here, but rather the actual HTML pages themselves. Even though these are usually small files, a little compression goes a long way. If you want to enable compression, take a look at a piece of software called GZip – it’ll do all the hard work for you right from your webserver using its advanced compression and decompression algorithm.

2. “Minify” your CSS and JS files

If you’ve ever spent time in your website’s source code, you’ve probably seen how verbose CSS and JavaScript code can become – especially over time. CSS is essential for making your site look its best, while JS enables advanced functionality, so you want them to perform as fast as possible. Luckily, you can “Minify” your CSS or JS code, which will remove unnecessary data like comments and white spaces and abbreviates some common functions. The result? Your website loading faster with no loss of data or functionality.

3. Invest in a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

If you’re not already using a CDN and you’ve ever tried to access your website from another country, you might have noticed it loads a little more slowly. This is to be expected – after all, the host server is many miles away – but it can be frustrating for potential customers. The solution is a Content Delivery Network. In a nutshell, a CDN hosts your website’s files on your behalf in multiple locations across the globe. When a user close to one of these servers visits your site, it will load from the nearest server to them geographically – and they won’t notice a thing.

A faster website means a smoother user experience and – with any luck – more conversions and leads. For more ways to make the most of your website’s performance, get in touch with the Excalibur Digital team today.