Improving Web Page load times is important to keep existing visitors on a website as well as to encourage visitors to revisit. It is also often mentioned in various Search Engine Optimization guidance that Search Engines may use page load times as part of their ranking algorithms.

Fortunately, for most web sites, there are a few activities which may be undertaken which will greatly improve page load performance. Described below are five factors which will improve page load speeds.

1. Check that your HTML is valid

Although many of the latest generation web browsers are good at providing accurate workarounds for invalid or badly constructed HTML, it still consumes time and resources when HTML is incorrectly constructed. It is always a good idea to use a HTML validation utility on your web pages (use Search Engine to find one of the many free online HTML validators).

Please note also that HTML as provided when saving to HTML from some Microsoft applications is NOT fully valid HTML. If, for example, you save a document in Microsoft Word 2003 using the 'save as' - 'Web Page' then your HTML will be invalid.

2. JavaScript

There are many guidelines for the correct formatting of JavaScript to ensure optimum speed. This recommendation however is concerned with where the JavaScript is placed within the web page itself.

For many scripts it is irrelevant where on the page they are placed. Placing the script just before the closing body tag usually ensures faster page loading times. A very common script is the Google Analytics script used on millions of web pages. As this script invokes JavaScript from Google to track page visits it is irrelevant where on the page the script appears. By having the script near the top of the body section means that all visitors have to wait for the script to run before the full web page is displayed. By placing the script at the end of the body section ensures that the page loads and only then does the script run.

3. Image Size

Always use images with as small a file size as practicable. Large file sized images take more time to load than small ones. There are various ways of reducing image file sizes including using different image formats (e.g. .gif instead of .jpeg) and reduced resolution. There are also a multitude of free online image compressors and other tools. There is of course a trade-off between file size and image quality.

4. Stylesheets (CSS Files)

There are four guidelines in relation to Stylesheets and page load times:

CSS should be held / defined in an external file on the local server.
The external Stylesheet should be referenced from each web page.
The link to the CSS file from the web pages should be in the head section of each page.
If the CSS file is large then compress the CSS file with GZIP (try to avoid large CSS files where possible).
Some knowledge of CSS is necessary in order to use CSS most effectively and it is highly recommended to be familiar with CSS and its usage.
5. Reduce HTTP Requests
Reducing the number of HTTP requests reduces page load times. HTTP requests do not need to be extensively understood nor analyzed to perform some basic best practice to reduce the number of requests from any web page. To reduce the number of HTTP requests always try to do the following; combine multiple images into a singe image (although the final image file size may be as large as the combined smaller files, the number of HTTP requests will be reduced), combine multiple Stylesheets into a single file and combine Javascript or PHP into as few files as possible.

Welcome Faster Page Load Speed

Above are five basics to improve page load speed performance. Load times of pages are necessary for effective SEO and are basic best practice of web page design and development.

Free Website Optimization Tips: Page Speed

A web page's loading time is becoming extremely important in search engine rankings. Improving page speed can cost a little money, so a small business might not do it. Here are some free ways to improve page speed:

1. Serve your images from another domain. For some reason, the people designing web browsers have advanced leaps and bounds when it comes to graphics, speed, and overall capabilities but are continuing to program browsers to follow the same rules when loading a page. One of these rules is that only two images can be loaded from the same domain at the same time. This means that if your page has eight images, your browser has to finish loading the first two before it moves on to the second, third, and fourth pair. This is one of the reasons why businesses are purchasing cloud storage space from companies like Amazon. You can find free alternatives if you run a blog on WordPress.com, Blogger, Tumblr, or have a Flickr account. This will reduce storage on your web host and offshore some of the loading to these external servers.

2. Consider CloudFlare. As a disclaimer, I don't work for CloudFlare or get paid for referring people, I just know that the service can work. With a little configuring, CloudFlare will route requests made to your server through their processors, which are usually faster. CloudFlare has paid plans, but the basic features can be had for free. I recommend CloudFlare if your web host will agree to whitelist them (you have to point your nameservers to their servers; if your host doesn't know what's going on, they may think your site has been hacked and will interfere).

3. Compress CSS and javascript. Your CMS probably has extensions that will do this for you. If not, there are a few online services that will compress your files for you. Minimizing these files will reduce their size and thus increase your page speed.

4. Serve your javascript from another domain. The same logic applies to any scripts you might be running as it does to images. Depending on the library, these can get bulky, and loading a few per page can eat up memory. Google Code hosts script libraries for jQuery and other projects. Pulling directly from Google's servers is free and secure, since they advertise a 99% up-time.

5. Check your cache settings. If you're running an open source content management system like Drupal, it's likely someone has developed some extensions to boost cache performance. Installing these will help your website serve up static pages instead of dynamic pages when people visit - in simple terms, your site will display already existing pages instead of asking the database what to say every time someone is browsing.

How to Avoid Google's Page Speed Penalty

Last week, Google made an announcement that could once again shake up a lot of small business websites.

According to an article from WebProNews, there is an internal organization within Google called the "Make the Web Faster" initiative, and this group's quest is to reduce the time it takes a web page to load. Last week Google announced that it now has a brand new feature called "mod_pagespeed", which apparently makes it quick and easy to optimize the pages on a website for speed.

But Wait - who cares how fast a web page loads?

Consider the following:

Website visitors routinely abandon websites that take too long to load. Study after study confirms this behavior. Most users would rather click the "Back" button than wait for an animated movie or graphic-intensive page to load. Users want information as fast as they can get it, and they are not willing to wait.

Experiments from Google found that users spend more time on websites that have fast page load times. Other studies confirm this behavior as well.

Google cares so much about speed that it recently added page load times as one of the regular criteria a site must meet in order to rank well in Google's search results.

Although Google says page load speed is not a major criteria - relevance and authority still count more - your website will receive a Google speed penalty if the pages load too slowly (e.g., longer than a second or two).

Google's own representatives have been quoted (by WebProNews) as saying "At Google, we're obsessed with speed - we measure it, pick it apart, think about it constantly."

Mod_Pagespeed

So what is mod_pagespeed, anyway? Apparently, it is an open-source Apache module (Apache is software that runs on your web server), and any webmaster can use it to automatically optimize a website for speed. The module works by automatically optimizing web pages and the resources on them with filters that apply best practices for web performance. Used correctly, Google says mod_pagespeed can reduce the time it takes a web page to load by up to 50%, making most websites load about twice as fast.

What Should You Do About Page Speed?

The first thing you should do is test the current page load times of your web pages, specifically the home page. Then, test the page load times of your top competitors' websites. If your page(s) are slower than your competition, you are probably losing ground in the search engine rankings (and if you haven't yet, you will). Then, use the new mod_pagespeed module (or have your web firm do this for you) to get the best performance and fastest download speeds possible for your website.

Faster is Better on the Web

When it comes to websites, faster page download times are definitely an advantage, especially if your competitors don't know about (or aren't paying attention) to this new development from Google.

Other advantages to having web pages that download quickly include:

Better User Experience: Faster websites provide a better web experience for visitors since pages load fast and users can find information quickly.

Better for Mobile Devices: Mobile phones and devices don't have the same level of processing memory as your PC, so websites optimized for page speed tend to work better on mobile devices.

Don't stand by and wait for your search engine positions to fall - check your page load speed against the speed of your competitors' websites, and if your site is too slow, Google just might have an answer for you with mod_pagespeed.

Page Speed - New Google Ranking Factor - Myth Or Fact?

Having been in search engine optimization for quite a few years I want to know everything possible that affect rankings in Google and other search engines. I have found evidence that page speed will be something that Google will be looking at. It only makes sense once you understand what Google is doing.

I will share that evidence with you in a few paragraphs but first let me set the stage for this evidence, the logic behind it and how implementing some page speed changes can work in your favor. They, Google want to be the best. They want their users to have the fastest search experience possible. Get the most relevant results for their queries. When anyone need or want to do a search they want people to think Google first. Plain and simple. After due consideration, this is good for repeat usage of their sites and vital to their continuance of dominating the search engine market.

With these goals set in place, Google is going to be looking at additional things like did you set proper caching headers, compress your images and write efficient java script. These are some of the things that affect a web site or web page's (loading) speed time. Additional things that affect page speed is using valid and correct html coding, minimizing browser flow, optimizing the order of scripts and your CSS. All things considered, Google is not doing this to punish webmasters.

Google wants the best for it's visitors and what's good for their search engine users are good for web publishers. As a reward, for improving your web site user experience, visitors will stay on a site longer. The longer they stay on your site the better chance of them completing a conversion goal you desire. Whether it's a click, an opt in as a lead, make a purchase or book an appointment etc. The better the load time and user experience the lower your bounce rate will be. If users are hitting the back button almost immediately the less profitable your site/s will be.

So to help web publishers, Google have created a software called Page Speed. It will analyze your web page contents and let you know exactly what you can do to make your page loading time faster. A software engineer, by the name of Sam Kerner who is working to make Google even faster said in a video that they 'would' be looking at page speed. To help other web publishers improve their page speed I have put several videos on a Blog Spot page along with the link to Google's free Page Speed analyzing software. On that page, you will find all in one place, documents on Page Speed, articles, an FAQ on the software and a page on exactly how to use the software just in case you have questions or wonder about anything. It's relatively easy to use and once you have made the suggested corrections your page speed will be faster. If you use a webmaster you can email the link below to him or her to improve your page loading speed.

Digitaleer
1332 Beverly CT NE
Olympia, WA 98516
(253) 592-4476
https://plus.google.com/b/114217780993114696336/+Olympiaseo
https://www.digitaleer.com/page-speed-optimization-services/