9 Tips to Improve Your Website Loading Speed

by Naren Arulrajah, Ekwa Marketing

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Has your website slowed down? Do you feel that it takes ages to load now, unlike in the past when it opened almost instantly? There could be many reasons behind this issue, but they may all have one result – discouraging visitors to your site.

As a dentist, you may know what a crucial role page loading speed plays in attracting potential patients to your website and your dental practice. Even if your site is ranked high in Google search, if it doesn’t load quickly, the visitor will probably abandon your site and move on to the next website in the search results page.

Speed affects your site’s user experience, visibility, traffic levels, and conversion rate. If the first factor is negatively affected, the last factor follows suit. It is said that 100 milliseconds of extra loading time can cause a seven percent drop in conversion rates, and an additional two seconds of loading time can raise your site’s bounce rate by 103 percent.

So, how do you figure out what is wrong, and how do you rectify the matter and optimize your site’s performance?

Here are some ideas to consider: 

  1. JavaScript, the code that makes your website function and interact with users, and CSS, the code responsible for page styling, may slow down your site if they are not optimized. Deferring JavaScript and combining external CSS files may work.
  2. Excessive overheads (too many irrelevant items) in your database can lengthen the period taken to respond to queries. It can be prevented by removing such overheads.
  3. Caching issues (when users’ browsers store static copies of your website files, these copies may be displayed when users request them instead of reloading the page) also contribute to delays. These can be prevented by plugins automatically asking to delete cached data after it has been modified.
  4. Large media files like images and videos are a primary culprit. Reduce them in size by decompressing them and improving your loading times.
  5. Badly written scripts may sometimes conflict with other elements on the site due to compatibility issues. A speed test can help you determine if this is the case.
  6. If your website code is too bulky or has too many unnecessary characters or line breaks, it may slow down. You can speed it up by removing such elements.
  7. Missing files may cause errors when users make additional requests to find those files. The fastest solution is to restore your site from the most recent backup, which would replace the missing files with the versions in your backup.
  8. Too many plugins or bulky plugins can lead to poor performance. Some plugins can also interfere with the caching of your web pages. Remove any unnecessary plugins to prevent this.
  9. Internet speed issues that crop up due to various service provider problems can also affect your website. Network congestion, data discrimination and filtering, content filtering, bandwidth throttling and restrictions are just a few.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why your website may be slowing down. Using the right tools and techniques ensures that your website is optimized and maintains good speeds. Figuring out what is wrong is the first step in finding the best solutions. Seek professional help if necessary. After all, if your website is slow to load, visitors won’t stay there long enough. Even a fraction of a second can make all the difference. This can affect the growth of your dental practice in more ways than one, so act now!


About the Author:

Naren Arulrajah, President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, has been a leader in medical marketing for over a decade. Ekwa provides comprehensive marketing solutions for busy dentists, with a team of more than 180 full time professionals, providing web design, hosting, content creation, social media, reputation management, SEO, and more. If you’re looking for ways to boost your marketing results, call 855-598-3320 for a free strategy session with Naren. You may also schedule a session at your convenience with the Senior Director of Marketing – Lila, by clicking https://www.ekwa.com/msm/  or simply send a text to 313-777-8494.


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