Sometimes, it can feel like you’re doing all the right things with your SEO, but nothing seems to be happening with your rankings. It can be infuriating when you check every week and still find your website is nowhere to be seen in the rankings. If this is the case with your website, then a common answer could be your site is just too slow.
In today’s’ world, consumers want their information fast, and if you’re not providing it, someone else will be. People have so many options on the internet, which means if your website hinders them in any way, they can easily go somewhere else and get what they need.
One of the main things that stops people even getting to your content is a slow website, so what can you do to change that? The fastest way to fix this is through a site audit by a company like Assertive Media, but there are some quick changes you can make.
Get Rid of Non-Essential Plugins
Plugins are great tools that allow us to expand the capabilities of our websites. However, they can also place a great burden on load speeds. There are some plugins that might be fundamental to the way you run your website, but in many cases, people keep adding plugins to their website and don’t actually use the majority of them.
As the plugins pile up, your pages need to load more script, which will slow down your website. In most cases, you don’t need the vast majority of those plugins, so ask yourself, “Is this plugin really necessary?”
If it’s not necessary, then get rid of it and allow your pages to load more quickly.
Optimize Your Image Files
Images are an essential part of a website. If your entire site was simply text, then very few people would read it, so you’ve got to mix up your content. But at the same time, be aware that large image files can severely affect your load speeds.
Like with the plugins, you need to weigh up the user experience benefits of an image against the speed implications. If the image adds more than it takes away, then go ahead and use it, but if you’re just putting images up for the sake of it, then you might want to think about cutting back.
When you do use images, make sure you’re compressing the files to make them easier to load. People love images and video, but they won’t want to wait around for them to load.
Make Sure You’re Using a Fast Theme
The theme dictates the layout of your website, which means it also has a big say in your loading speeds. Some themes are much faster than others, so again you’ve got to find that balance between user experience and load speeds.
If you’ve tried lots of things to try and make your website faster but haven’t seen any results, then it’s definitely worth trying out a different theme. Some of the newer themes are optimized for speed whilst still offering a good user experience, giving you the best of both worlds.