When working with an agency or freelancer you might come accross one that utilizes stylescapes. Stylescapes are visual research boards that takes into customers personas, fonts, colors, visual elements and other aspects that are involved in the design. You can image a stylescape in the same view point as a land or cityscape. An arial view of the whole design. A stylescape is usually put together around a key customer - however the elements are not created by the designer but put together from all the visual research like a collage.
In our modern day, especially with a Covid-19 pandemic and the peak holiday season looming around the corner - we just need our website to just work - and work fast. So how do optimize your website to load 1-3 seconds? Here's 10 things to lookout for and how you might be able to fix them yourself without the help of a developer - although they can make it easier.
Why your website speed matters
When your potential customer visits your website they cannot expect to wait for very long. When a page take longer than expected to load, it negatively affects your site's User Experience (UX). This is important because a bad UX equals a bad conversation rate. You'll probably see a high page abandonment and bounce rate. Studies has that an additional 2 seconds of loading time can increase your site's bounce rate by 103%, in addition 100 milliseconds of extra load time can cause 7% drop in conversation rate. As you can see even improving your load time a little will very important to your business success.
In additional to affect your UX, site speed is a Google ranking factor. Your Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) may decrease if your website speed is not up to Google's standards which will lead to low traffics and therefore loss of potential new businesses.
With the success of your business on the line - you have to take your website speed seriously. The first place to start is to gather some data of your current website and go from there. At Align we utilize 2 main tools to help us understand a website speed: one: GTMetrix.com and Google PageSpeed. If you signup with GTMetrix free account you can test the speed with a server near your region. If you sign to your Google Search Console or Google Analytics, Google can keep track of your speed and display it on your website dashboard.
10 reasons your website is loading slowly
Once you have run the 2 tests and gotten the results you can begin to optimize key factors that affects the site speed. Here are 10 of the most common issues that slows your website and how to fix them.
1. Render-Blocking Javascript is Delaying Page Loads
Your website is most likely using Javascript to load interactions, animations and other cool things that make your site cool. However when a browser tries to display your website, it has to stop and fully load any JavaScript files it encounters first - this is called rendered-blocking Javascript. There are 3 ways to fix rendered-blocking Javascript:
- Remove external JavaScript file, and use inline JavaScript instead.
- Use asynchronous loading so JavaScript can load separately from the rest of the page.
- Defer Javascript loading until the rest of the page is visible to the user.
Each method is a pros and cons - however the recommend option is 3 Defer Javascript loading until the end. You're probably wondering, how do I do this? If you're an Align client, you can use our Optimization tool and to the setting [setting name]>setting name>
2. Your images and other media files are too large
- Reduced long term marketing costs: Generally, it’s cheaper to keep a customer, than creating a new one.
- Market leverage: For example, if brand loyalists frequently request your product in store, this creates negotiation leverage with retailers. This could lead to reduced costs of shelf space.
- Free brand ambassadors: With solid branding and a great product it’s possible to build core brand loyalists. These loyalists will live and breath the brand, and push the brand forward. This is how many clothing brands rose to fame and fortune.
3. Your site CSS is not compressed or minified
Lowered acquisition costs of a new product line: When a customer believes and trusts a brand, they are more likely to associate those same feelings with all products under that brand. This eases customers into making new purchasing decisions. This lowers the fnancial cost per new acquisition.
4. You are not using a CDN (Content Delivery Network)
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5. Your site code is too bulky
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6. Missing files are causing errors
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7. Plugins are weighing your site down
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8. Your not caching your site correctly
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9. Poor code is conflicting with other site elements
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10 . Your server is bad - you're not using VPS or Dedicated Cloud Hosting
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