How to Improve Your Page Load Time

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For marketers looking to get more out of their websites, especially on mobile devices, page load time is often-overlooked factor that you should focus in on going into 2016.

Mobile web traffic is fast becoming the majority in the US. In some industries, it already is.

So we already know that mobile web design is important. We design our websites for the best mobile experience. And that means decreasing the amount of time needed for each page on your site to load.

Make Your Pages Lighter

Heavy pages take longer to load. What makes a page heavy and how can we fix it?

  1. Large image files – remove images or decrease the file size to allow for faster loading
     
  2. Large or external media files – videos, especially those imbedded from YouTube or some other third-part site should be limited or removed altogether on mobile sites
     
  3. Third party plug-ins – limit the amount of code you have your site coming from other sites or tools. In order for your page to load, it has to call each of those other sites. A common example of a third party plug-in that site owners will be familiar with is Google Analytics
     
  4. No caching – setting the cache on pages that are not regularly updated allows the browser to load what it has already loaded, bringing the page up much quicker
     
  5. Inefficient code – the best web developers do more with less when it comes to the actual code. By simplifying the code, you make your page much lighter.

Remember that what works on desktops and laptops does not always work on mobile. You want to be careful to choose an approach to your mobile site that decreases load time in order to improve usability.

Mobile First Web Design

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What do we mean when we talk about “mobile-first design”? Well, it’s actually quite simple. We mean that when you sit down to design something for the web, you design it for mobile specifically, and think about other formats second.

Most design today is desktop-first. Unless you are developing a mobile application, most designers and product developers still think in terms of desktop users.

The problem with that is, mobile as a percent of all web users is rising fast, and will soon overtake desktop users for the majority of companies and websites in the world. Check your Google Analytics and you’ll find out just how many of your visitors are coming from mobile devices. It might already be more than 50%.

My recommendation is, no matter who you are, the next time you redesign or redevelop your website, you should approach the project mobile first.

How?

  • Have your designer do their initial mockups using the screen size of the most popular phone on the market
  • Use buttons, large fonts, and clean, simplistic designs that appeal to mobile users
  • Take extra care in your navigation to make it easy to find what users are looking for without too many steps
  • Make the big calls to action, like calling or purchasing out, persistent throughout the site, even when a user scrolls
  • Once you have settled on a mobile design you all like, then work backwards to determine what they will look like on a desktop or larger screen size