HOW TO OPTIMIZE THE LOADING OF YOUR WEBSITE?
Page speed is a determining factor in search engine optimization (SEO), since it counts towards the quality score that Google gives you. Performance therefore has an impact on the ranking of your web pages.
In addition, loading speed determines the perception that Internet users will have of your company or your brand. If the pages of a website take too long to load, the visitor will not wait long before leaving the page and looking elsewhere. You lose potential customers and your site drops in the rankings.
It is worth noting that today consumers can get all the information they want very quickly. A “too long” load may actually be a load of only 3 seconds! In fact, a Google study showed that the probability that the visitor will leave your page increases by 32% when the loading time increases from 1 to 3 seconds. This is therefore a factor that should not be neglected.
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A faster website for better indexing
When a website loads slowly, it hurts your search engine rankings. A slow website can directly lead to lower search rankings . Google's robot must index billions of pages every day. There's no time to waste on a slow website! He must also optimize his work.
A robot (crawler, spider or bot) assigned by Google/Bing to explore your website has a maximum time to explore your site. Your page load time can cause you to exceed your crawl budget . If a page is still loading, its crawl budget is nonexistent. And if all your pages are delayed by high loading times, your SEO will suffer.
When you perform an SEO audit , the speed of each web page is measured.
What can be measured can be improved (Peter Drucker)
Page speed improves your SEO
Read also: Why should you train in SEO?
The speed of your pages has a direct impact on your SEO. The faster your pages load, the better your natural SEO will be. Crawl robots regularly measure the loading speed of your pages and take this factor into account in search engine ranking algorithms. Your efforts to make your pages faster will impact search results .
The design of the site must be simple and clean to allow crawl robots to properly analyze the content. Complex websites with lots of scripts and plugins can significantly slow down the bots' crawling process and result in poor content indexing. It is therefore important to hire an experienced web developer to design an SEO-optimized website.
Google only likes you when everyone already likes you (Wendy Piersall)
Here are the 10 levers to speed up your website:
1 - Choose optimized hosting with a good server
The hosting provider you use has a determining influence on the management and performance of your website , which includes the loading speed of your pages . For a lower monthly rate, don't sacrifice the quality of hosting, at the risk of regretting it later. You can have a dedicated server whose resources adapt to the needs of your traffic , it is certainly more expensive than shared hosting where other sites also consume resources and bandwidth.
There are a few hosting solutions that focus on website performance, with a powerful platform to optimize loading speed to the maximum. You have the choice between shared hosting (which you share), dedicated hosting (of which you are the only user) and a cloud (virtual server depending on your needs).
2 - Reduce the size and number of files present on the site
Also think about your downloadable resources, which should be high quality without taking too long to download. For example, you can use an online image converter for JPG to PDF files , the latter format being the most suitable for downloadable resources.
Use CSS sprites
Sprites are images composed of other smaller images that are used to reduce the number of HTTP requests made by a browser when loading a web page. Indeed, by putting all your small images on one large image, you can significantly reduce the number of HTTP requests made by a browser to load your web page.
Minimize the number of HTTP requests
The loading time of a web page is mainly determined by the number of files that the browser must load to display the page. The more files to load, the faster the loading speed will be. It is therefore important to minimize the number of files to load for a web page. It is also interesting to limit the different sources of these files as much as possible.
Make pages shorter
One way to make pages shorter is to remove unnecessary content . This could include removing images, reducing text, or removing videos. Another way to make pages shorter is to condense existing content. This could be shorter sentences, smaller fonts, or combining multiple pieces of information into a single section.
Read also: Natural SEO Strategies and SEO Trends in 2024
3 - Compress content for a fast website
To improve the performance of your website , it is possible to compress its content significantly. Popular web servers such as Apache and IIS use the GZIP compression algorithm to systematically perform this operation on HTML, CSS and JavaScript code.
There are also online compression services that remove unnecessary spaces and characters in HTML and CSS code.
The use of plug-ins assisted with artificial intelligence which will display images according to the characteristics of the user's screen is an interesting solution.
4 – Reduce redirects to improve your response times
Too many redirects on your site can really affect the loading of your website . Indeed, each time a page is redirected to another site, the HTTP request and response process is prolonged.
Although redirects are sometimes necessary, for example when you change your domain name, it is nevertheless essential to eliminate unnecessary redirects : in particular avoid creating unnecessary redirects when creating internal links and menus.
5 - Use browser caching for your website
The browser caching system keeps different versions of elements static, which helps accelerate page speed and reduce server response time. When an Internet user visits a page of your website, as a general rule, it is the cached version that is displayed.
Thus, the browser saves numerous requests to your server and improves the loading speed of your site in general.
6 – Operate a content delivery network (CDN)
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of servers that can help you increase the loading speed of your web pages. The principle is simple: it does this by hosting and distributing copies of your site's static content from servers located around the world.
Read also: The Complete Guide to A/B Testing: Steps and Best Practices
In addition to the server that hosts your main site, CDNs allow you to distribute copies of your site files among strategically selected data centers. The distance that data queries must travel is reduced, which optimizes website performance .
7 - Use lazy loading for JavaScript and CSS files
A website is made up of JavaScript and CSS files, and these files can be loaded synchronously or asynchronously: either the files load one after the other, depending on the order in which they appear on your web page, or they load charge at the same time.
It is this second method which makes it possible to improve the performance of the site , provided that the blocking resources are eliminated. On WordPress, there are extensions to make this task easier.
8 – Keep an eye on website extensions
Extensions, or plug-ins, allow you to develop new functionalities and features on the site. The problem is that the more extensions your website has, the longer it will take to load pages.
Additionally, outdated or unsuitable plugins can significantly slow down your site's performance. This is why you should only keep what is necessary, and make sure to delete extensions that are no longer used.
9 - Optimize and clean your PHP MySQL database
If you want your PHP MySQL database to perform optimally, you need to regularly clean and optimize it . This can be done easily using a tool like phpMyAdmin.
There are two methods for cleaning and optimizing a database. The first is to do it directly from the MySQL database. The second is to install a plugin that lets you get the job done without taking too much hassle. First of all, and whatever the method, you must make a backup (this will always be useful in the event of a problem).
10 - Choose a CMS, page builder and themes optimized for speed
There are many factors to consider when choosing a speed-optimized CMS, page builder, and themes. Here are some of the most important factors:
1. The size of your website. If you have a large website, you will need a CMS that can handle large traffic and data.
2. The type of content you have on your website. If you have a lot of images or videos, you'll need a CMS that can handle media files.
3. The degree of customization you need. If you need a lot of customization, you'll need a page builder that's flexible and easy to use.
4. The level of support you need. If you're not tech-savvy, you'll need a CMS that offers good customer support.
5. Your budget. Speed-optimized CMS, page builders, and themes can be expensive. Make sure you choose one that fits your budget.
Read also: Make Good Use of your virtual Visit on the Internet with your Website
How to measure the loading time of your site/page?
There are several ways to measure the loading time of your site/page. To test the loading times (Tdc) of your pages, you have many options to choose from, Google recommends the free tools PageSpeed, YSlow and WebPageTest. Google's PageSpeed Insights tool will give you a score out of 100, with 100 being the fastest. Another solution is to use Pingdom's Website Speed Test tool. It will provide you with a detailed report on the loading time of each element on your page.
Some tools evaluate your website's performance from servers around the world (a great feature for websites that target multiple countries and test the effectiveness of CDNs). They also offer the possibility of comparing yourself to your competitors (benchmarking).
Loading time for content such as Go Naddra virtual tours
To capture attention on a web page and highlight a professional establishment, offering a virtual tour is an excellent solution .
A virtual tour allows you to discover a place through a series of Go Naddra panoramic photographs. The visitor can move freely in the space and explore every corner by clicking on the different links on the page.
Conducting a virtual tour is a process that requires time and technical skills. You must start by taking Go Naddra panoramic photos with a specially adapted camera, then stitch the images together to create a complete panoramic image. Next, you need to set up the HTML code to display the panoramic image on a web page.
Virtual tours offer Go Naddra images which can be very demanding on bandwidth and server resources. While Go Naddra photographic images are of good quality, they represent a lot of information to load. Switching from one panoramic photo to another must be done smoothly enough for the user experience to be pleasant.
The loading time of content such as Go Naddra virtual tours, 3D renderings and panoramic images can be quite slow depending on the technology used, especially if they are not optimized for the web. The quality of the servers is also essential, as is the CDN network used.
This can be a major problem for users with slow internet connections or for those trying to view content on mobile devices.
The Go Naddra Google tours that we produce at Go Naddra are hosted directly on Google's Street View servers , so they offer excellent, hyper-realistic qualitative rendering with a very fast loading time. The advantage of Google Street View technology is that it automatically adapts to the terminal used (laptop, tablet, computer) and depending on the resolution and quality of connection, which makes it possible to optimize viewing time. loading.
It should be noted that even if there is a slight delay for the initial connection to take place, Google does not penalize its own services and servers (that would be shooting itself in the foot). Furthermore, Google understands this type of content perfectly, because it manages the servers itself and has all the data and metadata to interpret it correctly in terms of SEO. The result is that enriched Google virtual tours index very well in Google and position themselves in the first results.
Regarding our enrichments, we use the Google Street View and Google Maps APIs which also offer much better performance than competing solutions. Here again Google interprets this type of content favorably, because each interaction demonstrates its interest and value.