Lazy Loading Benefits for Performance
Improvement in Both Perceived and Real Loading Time for Your Pages It’s become common knowledge that the speed at which pages load is a crucial part of user experience, and recently page speed has become more and more important in other areas – Google’s search engine ranks pages based on page load time (specifically, time to first byte), and Facebook has announced that it will prioritize links that load quickly in its newsfeed over those that are slow to load, saying “We’ve heard from people that it’s frustrating to click on a link that leads to a slow-loading webpage. In fact, even more broadly on the internet, we’ve found that when people have to wait for a site to load for too long, they abandon what they were clicking on all together.” Long pages rich in images are longer to load: as we saw, the amount of image data must be fully downloaded before the page becomes 100% usable. If we lazy load our images instead, the issue will be solved because only those placed above the fold will be loaded in the first instance. This will result in a real reduction of first-page load time as well. Reduction of the Work for the Browser If images are lazy-loaded, your browser won’t need to parse or decode resources until they are requested by scrolling the page. Every time you surf the web, a whole bunch of technical stuff happens behind the scenes to deliver content to your screen. Engineers are usually the ones managing these activities. Marketers, even those with technical chops, tend to shy away from it. One of these activities is an HTTP request, and it’s actually not as complicated as you might think. In fact, marketers need to have at least a general understanding of the actions their own website performs each time a person visits it. The metrics marketers tend to be responsible for can depend heavily on how the backend of a website is developed. For example, a high number of HTTP requests by your webpage can slow down the page’s load time, which ultimately damages the user experience. This can cause your visitors to leave the page more quickly if it doesn’t load fast enough (which increases your”bounce rate”). HTTP requests can affect numerous key metrics that determine how engaged your audience is with your business. Lazy Loading Benefits for Performance Read more: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/reduce-http-requests Fewer Data Served by the Server or the CDN Content delivery networks (CDNs) improve site performance by using a distributed network of servers to deliver resources to users. Because CDNs reduce server load, they reduce server costs and are well-suited to handling traffic spikes. A content delivery network consists of a network of servers that are optimized for quickly delivering content to users. Although CDNs are arguably best known for serving cached content, CDNs can also improve the delivery of uncacheable content. Generally speaking, the more of your site delivered by your CDN, the better. Lazy Loading Benefits for Performance Read more: https://web.dev/content-delivery-networks/ Data and Bandwidth Saving (Especially from Mobile) If the most significant part of data on your pages — usually taken by images — is downloaded only upon the scroll, users visiting your site from mobile devices will be super thankful! Lazy loaded images will save your readers’ data and bandwidth, an extraordinary gift for those people not counting on fast Internet networks or permissive data plans. Lazy Loading Benefits for Performance Read more: https://wp-rocket.me/blog/lazyloading/
Tips to Speed Up Your WordPress Site
Choose a powerful hosting Your WordPress hosting service plays a major role in website performance. What makes a good hosting provider? A good hosting provider takes the extra measures to optimize your website for performance and provides good customer support. There are a few types of hosting on the market: Shared hosting – you share the server resources with many other people. If one of them gets a traffic peak, your website may be impacted. You need to be careful.Dedicated hosting – in this model, a hosting provider rents a single server with all its available resources to one client: you. You are free to do whatever you want with your server, and it’s good for your loading speed. Managed WordPress hosting – that gives you the most optimized server configurations to run your WordPress site. Those companies know WordPress inside out and offer features dedicated to WordPress, such as automatic WordPress updates, security configurations, and much more. Use a cache plugin for speed optimization Are you looking for a caching or minifying plugin for WordPress? Or just looking for ways to speed up your WordPress installation? In this post, you’ll discover 10 powerful plugins that will make your WordPress website load faster. You’ll find caching plugins, minifying plugins, lazy loading plugins, and some additional plugins that allow you to make various tweaks to your website. 1. WP Rocket 2. Perfmatters 3. NitroPack 4. WP Fastest Cache 5. Cache Enabler 6. WP Super Cache 7. W3 Total Cache 8. WP Super Minify 9. WP Smush.it 10. LazyLoad by WP Rocket Read more: https://bloggingwizard.com/free-speed-enhancing-wordpress-plugins/ Optimize your images and use lazy loading Resizing and compressing your images correctly before uploading is a must-do if you want to have a performant web page. But what happens after images are uploaded? Is there a way to optimize them a bit more and improve page loading time? The answer is yes! What’s Lazy Loading for Images and How It Works The basic idea of lazy loading is to load images or iframes only when users need to display them: they won’t have to wait for all the elements in the page to be loaded and, therefore, can start using the web page sooner. This means that your pages will only show images above the fold; the rest will come as soon as the user scrolls the page. How Does a Web Page Usually Load? Whenever you ask your browser to open a URL, this is what happens: The click on a link triggers a requestThe page is downloaded with all its resources (files)The web browser builds the page using the resources contained in itThe page is now displayed (rendered) to the user Read more: https://wp-rocket.me/blog/lazyloading/ Best Practices to Improve Speed Use the right theme: choose a theme optimized for speed Don’t use a slider on your header Eliminate bloated plugins Upload large media files to suitable services Make use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Make regular WordPress updates Limit post revisions
How do I optimize my WordPress website?
It’s 2021 and always remember that the consumer is spoiled for choice. As such, when search engines are ranking results, they want to ensure that they’re only showing the best of the best to their users. This is why your site speed and performance matters so much – it’s part of the difference between showing up on the first page of Google and showing up on the tenth. What are the top tips to improve WordPress website speed? And Why is your WordPress site slow? optimize my WordPress website? Why Does Page Speed Matter? Evaluating the page speed is crucial if you want to know the health of your WordPress site. No one likes a slow website (and neither does Google!). If you focus on providing a faster and safer experience to the users, you’ll benefit from the Google Page Experience update. And there’s more. Site speed influences SEO. Google has indicated that the speed at which your page loads is an important signal in determining its ranking. Google wants to know that if they send a visitor your way, that visitor will be happy with the experience. In June, Google is going to update its algorithm and integrate the Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor. The Core Web Vitals are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage’s overall user experience: the loading speed will become more crucial than ever. Fast sites are easier to crawl. In addition, when your page is slow, it disincentivizes web crawlers which only have limited resources and might deprioritize your site if it is too slow. Page speed impacts conversions. It’s also relevant from a user experience perspective – a slow site just doesn’t cut it these days. You have a very short window of time to keep users’ attention. If there is any delay or whatsoever, people are likely to click away to something else. Ensuring that your page loads as fast as it can is a necessary part of any online strategy. The quicker a webpage loads, the more likely a user is to perform the targeted action on that webpage. And we all agree with that! Fast sites reduce the bounce rate. One of your marketing goals should always be faster than your competitors simply because they are just one click away. You can have the best content and a great product, but if your website is slow, you’ll lose all the efforts you put into design and development. Don’t be that website! optimize my WordPress website? How to optimize your WordPress site without any SEO plugins There are more than 50 million blogs that use WordPress as their CMS (Content Management System). This enormous number increases the competition to a great level among those blogs. So if you also have a WordPress blog, you need to make strategies to implement to make your blog stand out of the crowd, and get tons of organic search traffic. Search Traffic (Organic Traffic) is the traffic you get from web search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Organic traffic is the king of all traffic sources because it benefits you the most in many ways. Set the WordPress URL and Site URL Do you need to change your WordPress URL? Whether you’re moving from HTTP to HTTPs, changing your domain name, migrating from local server to live site, or transferring to a subdomain, you will need to know how to change your WordPress site URL. The WordPress address and site address are extremely important fields because they reference the address of your website on the internet and the location of your website files. The first thing to avoid duplicate content I would suggest checking whether you have set WordPress URL and Site URL in your blog correctly. If you haven’t set it properly, you might end up having two different URLs of your blog www.example.com and example.com. Though the same page will open in the browser if you open any of these URLs, but Google considers these as two different sites as they are opening on two different URLs. Have SEO friendly URLs Well optimized URLs are important for both search engine optimization and user experience. Search engines factor many variables into their decision making process and URLs are high on the list. As with page titles, URLs help describe a web page to search engines and potential visitors, meaning they should be accurate, enticing, and well-structured. While many factors should be considered, here are eight best practices for creating SEO-friendly URLs. 1. Describe your Content 2. Include Keywords in URLs 3. Use Hyphens to Separate Words 4. Use Lowercase Letters in URLs 5. Keep URLs Short 6. Use Static URLs 7. Be Careful with Subdomains 8. Limit Folders in URL Structure Adding title and meta descriptions To write the best page titles and meta descriptions, you must make them unique, make sure they’re not too short or long, use accurate keyword phrases for each page, not stuff keywords in, and write for people, not robots. These rules are simple and easy to follow, and the result of well-optimised page titles and meta descriptions is more traffic to your website. optimize my WordPress website? Resources: https://www.commonplaces.com/blog/how-to-create-seo-friendly-urls/ https://wprealestate.com/blog/how-to-optimize-your-wordpress-site-without-any-seo-plugins/ https://wp-rocket.me/blog/guide-to-page-speed-optimization-for-wordpress/ https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-change-your-wordpress-site-urls-step-by-step/
What is average page response time?
What is average page response time? Optimizing response time is one of the best ways to measure your customer service performance. By definition, average response time is the average time the server takes to respond to all the requests given to it (thanks, Raygun!). More specifically, we like to look at it as how you can measure efficiency among your customer service staff and platform. While the metric seems simple on the surface, it gives valuable insights into areas of future growth and improvement. We’ll take you through how to calculate this metric, how to understand it in the context of your industry, and how to apply it to the platforms you’re using now. How to Calculate Average Response Time You can calculate average response time by multiplying each transaction by its response time, summing the products, and dividing the sum to the total transactions. Average response time can be assessed for various time-periods (i.e. day, week, month, year) and, if your transactions are tied to certain products or campaigns, you can assign a specific average response time for each. If you’re confused about how to define transaction, response time, and total transactions, we’ve included some nifty definitions and examples below: The transaction is the query of users on a website or application. This includes answering messages and completing their requests.Response time is the time interval that it takes for the staff or an application to answer the requests of the user. Note that you have to choose the easiest metric (seconds, minutes, hours) depending on all intervals of transactions!The total transaction is the sum of all the transactions made in a certain period of time. You can count per day, weeks, or months. What Is a Good Page Load Time for SEO — How Fast Is Fast Enough? Ever since Google’s Mobilegeddon, page load time has been a hot topic for website improvement, not simply because of the increased demand from mobile visitors but because of potential lead and customer losses. While page speed influences your search ranking and Facebook pushes Instant Articles, it’s obvious that websites need to pick up the pace, but how fast is fast enough? What amount of page loading time will consumers accept and what will make them close the tab and find something else? Page Load time Is a Primary Ranking Factor Your website needs to be fast enough for your visitors. While that may not be the answer you’re looking for, it’s the one that your website visitors will appreciate. By monitoring your bounce rate (in Google Analytics or comparable metric trackers) and page load time (using the Chrome extension “Page Load Time” or more extensive trackers) you can continue to enhance your website and better serve your visitors. Why Page Loading Time Is Important for SEO While you know the obvious answer, it doesn’t provide you a goal to work towards. Before I get into the speeds you should be aiming for (and not) there’s something you should know: the numbers on page speed suck. Often, the same stats are posted time and time again and are dated while technology is anything but dated, it’s continually improving. What is Google Recommended Page Load Time? The recommended page load time for websites on both mobile and desktop devices <3 seconds, says Google. However, the search engine giant says, the current average load time of web pages on mobile devices is 22 seconds. If you analyze some of the top traffic-driving websites on the internet, you may find a similar pattern – they all have a load speed fewer than 4 seconds. If you’re frustrated while driving through slow-moving traffic, you would be even more frustrated when browsing a slow loading website. Unlike slow-moving traffic, when it comes to the web, you have multiple options. If you end up on a website with poor page load speed, you can always go back to the search engine and choose the immediate competitor. If this is not the case, you can directly type the address of another website that provides similar services and access it. If you’re a website owner, put this in the perspective of your target audience. What is average page response time? Resources: https://www.lido.app/metrics/average-response-time – https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-fast-is-fast-enough-page-load-time-and-your-bottom-line/ – https://www.stanventures.com/blog/google-recommended-page-load-time/
Page Load Time
What is Page Load Time Page load time is the time it takes to download and display the entire content of a web page in the browser window (measured in seconds). Page load time is a key performance metric for any website to help ensure a positive user experience and customer retention. Additionally, it’s been shown to influence a site’s search engine rankings. Web page load time begins when a site visitor first initiates a request and stops when the page’s entire content is displayed within their browser. In that time the following steps occur: The visitor’s browser makes a request to your web server.The server processes the request and sends a response back to the browser.Upon receiving the requested page, the browser parses the code files (e.g, HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and renders the page content in the browser. With so many sites at their fingertips, today’s online shoppers don’t have to suffer slow websites. If one of your pages doesn’t appear lightning-fast, your customer will move on to speedier online stores-and rather than converting those clicks into sales, you’ll have delivered a bad customer experience instead. In fact, a one-second delay in page load time has been shown to cause a 7 percent loss in conversion and 11 percent fewer page views. For an online store earning $50,000 a day, that one-second delay adds up to more than $1 million in lost sales each year (1). In its simplest terms, page load time is the average amount of time it takes for a page to show up on your screen. It’s calculated from initiation (when you click on a page link or type in a Web address) to completion (when the page is fully loaded in the browser). Usually measured in seconds, page load time is made up of two different parts: Network and Server Time: based on how speedy the internet connection is and how swiftly static assets like photos and other files are served upBrowser Time: how long it takes for the browser to parse and execute the document and render the page to make it available for user interaction The same Web page can easily have different page load times in different browsers (e.g. Safari vs. Internet Explorer), on different platforms (e.g. mobile vs. desktop), and in different locations. If your site is served by one data center in the U.S. but you sell to customers in Australia and the U.K., for instance, those international shoppers are likely to experience much lengthier load times. But if your site’s static assets are copied onto different data centers around the world, the page will pull from the data center that’s closest to where your shoppers are. That can drastically speed up page load times. Different pages on the same site can also have radically different load times, because of developer decisions like richer design elements, beefier functionality, and more content on a page. There are several online tools for determining average page load times, meaning it’s possible for your Web development team to focus on streamlining your slowest-loading pages first. Response time in Website monitoring In website monitoring, response time is calculated as the total time taken to resolve the DNS, complete the TCP hand-shake, negotiate an SSL handshake (for HTTPS) and download the full HTML output from the server. However, it does not include getting the images and other resources that are loaded within the HTML page. How page load time works The “stopwatch” begins when a user makes a request and ends when the entire content of the page is displayed on the requesting browser. Below is a typical request-response cycle with various steps that contribute to page load time: User enters a URL, submits a form, or clicks on a hyperlinkBrowser makes a request to the server through the networkThe request is processed by the web serverWeb server sends the response back to the browserBrowser starts receiving the requested page (known as time to first byte)Browser parses, loads, and renders the page contentThe entire requested page becomes available on the browser The impact of page load time Websites and web services that load quickly have better engagement and conversation rates. In fact, revenue depends on having pages that load fast. Here are a few case studies that prove this: Google: The search giant found that a half second increase in page load time (from 0.4 to 0.9s) caused a 20% drop in traffic and revenue.Financial Times: This digital news publisher carried out research to try and understand the impact of speed on user engagement and revenue. They found that a 1 second delay in page load time led to a 4.9% drop in the number of articles read, while a 3 second delay had a 7.2% drop. Also, the slower website had lower subscription renewal rates.GQ Magazine: In just one month after reducing page load time from 7 to 1.5 seconds, the number of unique visitors increased from 6 million to 11 million. In addition, the median time spent on the website rose from 5.9 to 7.8 minutes, resulting in a 108% increase in ad interaction rate. Resources: https://blog.stackpath.com/page-load-time/
What Is Responsive Web Design?
What Is Responsive Web Design? Responsive websites can use flexible grid layouts that are based on the percentage each element takes up in its container. For instance, if a single element is 30 percent, it will always be 30 percent regardless of the size of the screen used by the device that is accessing the site. As a result, you get a uniformly excellent experience no matter how big the screen is on your device. Also, there are a ton of responsive website templates out there you can use. The drawbacks? If you’re starting at the beginning, you’ll need to test your site extensively. And if you don’t know how to code, custom responsive website designs can be pretty difficult to build. People spend, on average, 3.3 hours a day engaging with digital media on their smartphones. Because of this shift in consumer behavior, it’s no longer enough to have a website that only works from a desktop computer. What is a responsive website design? A responsive web design automatically adjusts for different-sized screens and viewports. With a responsive website, someone can browse your website from any device and it will still look and function perfectly. How Responsive Websites Work A typical website is comprised of a set of files (each web page—home page, about page, etc.—is an individual file). Each file contains HTML code and content (text and images). Web pages are styled with files called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). For ease of explanation, let’s say that a standard (non-responsive) website has a set of files and a few CSS files that govern the look of the site. A responsive website applies an alternate set of CSS files depending on the device being used to access the site. The site looks and ‘responds’ differently based on the device. “Mobile first” is the saying in the digital industry that’s been guiding online companies to tailor their websites to fit the smaller screens of smartphones. The emphasis on mobile browsing began years ago, but the methods rapidly adapt to new consumer usability standards and user-friendliness. In the past, businesses typically created entirely different websites with unique URLs for their mobile websites. This method made it difficult for them to track conversions, as it resulted in two websites that required upkeep, maintenance, and tracking. Today, the standards come down to responsive or adaptive web design. Explore how responsive web design works. How the CSS Works with Responsive Web Design Responsive web design is fluid, while adaptive is more pixel-based. The CSS, or cascading style sheet, is where web developers implement responsive web design. Setting up a website with responsive web design means the website will automatically adjust everything on the web page using a percentage-based outline. For example, if you want a specific column on a page to take up 50 percent of the screen, then the column will take up 50 percent of the space regardless of the screen size. This keeps the design consistent and user focused. With responsive web design, the exact same content doesn’t always appear on small screens and large screens—mobile devices often can’t handle all the extra fluff or content that looks clean on a laptop or desktop computer. Use the CSS to choose what to show and what to omit on your mobile site. Why Responsive Web Design Is Important There was a time when people only accessed websites from a desktop computer. The vast majority had the same size monitor. Websites were designed for the average visitor. Today, people access websites from a variety of different devices with screens ranging from a few inches all the way up to 27″ or more and expectations have changed. Consumers expect the website they’re visiting to know that they’re using a tablet vs. a PC. They expect the site to adjust to them—not the other way around. SEO Implications Google is making changes to make the Core Web Vitals more impactful on website rankings than ever before. This will now emphasize user-friendliness in loading, interactivity, and visual stability. Google is now recommending switching to a responsive web design model to keep up with changing expectations. Responsive web design makes the user experience more enjoyable and seamless. It removes the cumbersome pinching and readjusting of the screen for users. This may seem like a minor inconvenience, but the standard of what users expect is rapidly changing. Users want the most seamless and user-oriented experience possible, and responsive web design achieves this. SEO Implications In the early days of web design, pages were built to target a particular screen size. If the user had a larger or smaller screen than the designer expected, results ranged from unwanted scrollbars to overly long line lengths, and poor use of space. As more diverse screen sizes became available, the concept of responsive web design (RWD) appeared, a set of practices that allows web pages to alter their layout and appearance to suit different screen widths, resolutions, etc. It is an idea that changed the way we design for a multi-device web, and in this article, we’ll help you understand the main techniques you need to know to master it.
