In 2020, optimizing your website speed is essential.
As Google have already stated, it’s one of the critical ranking factors for SEO.
Plus, if you have a sluggish website, then fewer people are going to spend time on your site, because it’s harder to navigate.
And overall, this could cost you valuable time, sales and conversions.
So that’s why I’ve created this guide on 5 ways to quickly boost your website’s speed.
Table of Contents
5 Ways to Increase Your Website Speed
Tip #1: Pick Your Hosting Provider Carefully
Your website host will have a HUGE impact on your site’s speed:
And not all servers were created equal.
So you have to be careful about which company you hire.
This is so important:
Not only for speed but also for reliability too.
Some website hosting services are just too damn slow, unreliable and unpredictable.
You have to be careful about this:
For example, I previously used Hostgator, and found they were pretty slow.
But then when I switched to Siteground, I saw a massive improvement.
Tip #2 Minify Your CSS, Javascript And HTML
You should also minify the CSS, JavaScript, and HTML on your website.
If you’ve ever looked at the code on your site, such as the CSS, it seems complicated.
You’ve probably seen all those line spaces and notes that break it up and make your CSS a lot easier to read.
But the problem, if your code is inefficiently written then this can slow down your site.
In fact, the complexity of your code can make it slower and harder to load.
By minifying your CSS, HTML and Javascript, the code becomes quicker. And as a result, it makes your website faster overall.
Now, you could do this manually, carefully editing every single line of code:
But that would take forever to do!
In fact, I wouldn’t recommend that unless you know exactly what you’re doing and you have a lot of time to spare.
Instead, you can use a WordPress plugin like WP Rocket:
You can set this up within minutes and it’ll save you a lot of time in the long run.
Tip #3 Use A CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Next up, I’d recommend using a Content Delivery Network (also known as a CDN) for your site.
This will speed up your site by hosting all the static elements of your website:
For example, you can host your CSS, JavaScript and images on a remote server that’s optimized for speed.
Then when someone uses your website, all those static elements load a lot quicker.
…Plus it’s free to use!
Personally, I use Cloudflare for this, but there are loads of CDNs available for you to use.
Tip #4: Optimize Images
You should also optimize images on your website.
Quite often, images within your content and articles have HUGE file sizes.
So they can take ages to load, which makes your website slower.
But you can’t just get rid of all the images on your site, because then your content is going to be less engaging.
…So it’s kind of a Catch 22 situation!
However, there’s a solution:
What you can do is compress your images so that they’re smaller in file size but still keep the same quality.
Now, you could do that manually, but you’ll also waste a lot of time.
Instead, use a WordPress plugin like ShortPixel to automate the process.
With this plugin, you can click a button and compress all of your website’s images instantly, saving you time and increasing your site speed.
Tip #5: Remove Or Optimize Adverts
Finally, remove or at least optimize the adverts on your site.
Because when you have advertisements on your sites they can be:
- Intrusive
- Oversized
- Slow down your website (especially video advertisements)
Now, this doesn’t mean you have to wipe out the ads on your site completely:
However, you should speak to your ads partner to figure out how can you optimize them.
For example, with Mediavine, you can click a button, and it optimizes the adverts on your site (but you might take a slight hit on your revenue).
However, if you sacrifice some of your revenue in the short term to increase your website’s usability, you may make you more money in the long run.
