It’s 2021 – your website visitors expect your site to load fast. It’s the norm.
If your mobile site doesn’t load in the literal blink of an eye, that can lead to mobile users bouncing off your site.
For our visual learners, take a look at this graph about some website load time stats:
It’s abundantly clear how important speedy mobile load times are. So we’ve outlined some practical steps you can implement in order to decrease your mobile site load time.
1. Revisit Your Mobile Site Design
When your website was built and designed, did you have mobile devices in mind? Odds are you focused on the way it looked on a desktop screen. If you didn’t – you’re a pro!
But it’s important that your website is epic looking without using an overwhelming amount of code; which will make it slower. It’s easy to get caught up in creating an awesome looking site, but you want to ensure that you are not using an excessive amount of custom code, which will bog down your load time.
The secret is to find the balance between a tasteful site and a clean site.
2. Use Compressed (or Less) Images
To be clear, having images on your site is a good thing. Check out our site – we definitely use images. But too much of a good thing can quickly become not such a good thing. Having a lot of images on your site can not only crowd your site, but also cause longer load times on mobile devices.
If you look at your site and think “hey, all of these pictures are absolutely necessary and serve a purpose” ; that’s great! There is still another way to create more space on the site. By compressing your images, you will reduce the image’s file size. Essentially, compression is just a way to make your images smaller without worsening the quality. Photoshop is a great tool to use for this!
3. Switch Website Servers
If you find that your site is optimized and still has slower mobile loading times, maybe it’s time to switch your hosting provider.
Sure there are cheaper hosting providers out there; we struggled with that for a bit. But in the end, we went with a faster and more stable hosting provider. It comes down to your mission critical statement – how much is it worth to pay for a more stable and faster hosting provider? For some really small businesses that don’t get a ton of website visitors, it might not make sense to pay the extra charge. In those cases, GoDaddy Managed WordPress serves them well.
This step may be a little more advanced, but it definitely can be beneficial in increasing your site’s load times!