10 Ways to Speed Up Your Website and Improve Conversion

Nowadays, every customer counts. Companies that operate online need every lead they can get their hands on, hoping that those leads will be willing to convert.
After nurturing leads back to your website, it’s of vital importance to provide them with an exceptional experience.

The factor that impacts user experience the most is website speed. If your website isn’t fast enough to satisfy consumer expectations, all of your other efforts to encourage conversions might utterly fail.

With that in mind, here are a few ways to speed up your website and improve conversion rates.

Start using Browser Caching

Today, a lot of websites are filled with various types of content. What makes a website look good can also slow it down. The more website visitors you have, the more demanding it becomes for your website to keep up with displaying everything. That’s why browser caching is imperative.

What it does is tells users’ browsers to save some of the essential files, assets and resources related to your website. That way, every time a user visits your website again, the browser will load these resources from its cache instead of downloading them again from your website. This can significantly improve page loading time.

Optimize Images

Every website owner wants a perfect design for their website. The better the visuals on your pages, the more engaged your visitors will be.

If you partnered up with a web design company, for instance, your website will have plenty of high-quality visuals. Visuals, such as images and videos, may take more time to load based on their quality and resolution.

You can easily fix this and improve website speed by optimizing your images. You can reduce their size, format and even compress them to suit the needs of your website without sacrificing their quality in the process.

You’ll have a website with an awesome design that’s fast enough, which is what everyone is looking for.

Have a Mobile-Friendly Website

It’s no secret that mobile users outnumber desktop users these days. Websites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices will certainly lose a lot of opportunities for conversion and sales.
Having a mobile-friendly website is crucial for business success.
The best way to ensure a seamless browsing experience for your mobile users is to implement a responsive design. A resourceful web design agency can help you implement such a design for your website.
Once the responsive design has been implemented, your website content will be able to adapt to any device and any screen size.

Use Lazy Loading

As mentioned before, having a lot of visuals, such as images and videos, is great for the user experience. However, such elements tend to slow down your page loading time as such elements take more time to process.
By using lazy loading, you can remedy this issue and make your page loading time go much faster.
The way lazy loading works is that your website only displays content that’s in users’ viewpoint. It delays loading other website elements until the user scrolls down and they come into view. This allows your website to load only the necessary elements while others are placed on hold until they’re needed.

Ensure Seamless Navigation

Consumers nowadays want fast and efficient access to information and content. If they’re delayed for too long, they might reconsider converting or making a purchase.
That’s why it’s of vital importance to ensure seamless navigation on your website so that consumers can find what they need with ease.
The less time it takes for consumers to get from a product page, for instance, to the checkout page, the greater the likelihood that they’ll convert.
Seamless navigation reduces friction by allowing website visitors to get from point A to point B in just a few clicks.

Have Well-Optimized CTAs

Sometimes, consumers can decide whether to convert or not in a split second.
Should they decide to convert, it’s essential that you make it easy for them to do so. That’s why every page should have a well-optimized call-to-action button (CTA).
Clear and straight-to-the-point CTAs can help consumers convert without too many delays.
For example, a CTA button that says “Click here for your free eBook” is much more efficient than a simple link. Consumers simply don’t have the time or the patience to follow complicated instructions. A CTA that will do most of their work for them is the key to an improved conversion rate.

Code Minification

Sometimes, things that aren’t quite obvious can slow down your website and harmfully impact customer experience. A good example is your website code taking too long to execute.
In most cases, developers who create your website code will leave a lot of empty space and unnecessary characters to make it easier for them to work or leave instructions for those who might work on your code afterward.
The code minification process eliminates all that empty space and unnecessary characters from your website code allowing it to execute much faster. The end result is faster page loading time and overall website speed.

Leverage Reviews and Testimonials

It’s no secret that consumers trust other consumers more than they trust your company.
If you cannot convince new leads to convert, then your other customers might be able to do it for you. That’s why it’s important to encourage user reviews and testimonials, as well as display both on your web pages.
When other consumers see that your customers are satisfied, they’ll be more willing to convert.
Of course, if your customers are happy, they’ll gladly write a review, but you can further encourage such behavior through incentives and rewards.
Make Sure You Have Awesome Content
A lot of visitors land on your pages with a specific intent in mind. They want to learn more or find out more about you or your products and services. In any event, make sure you can satisfy the user intent by providing visitors with awesome content.
Your content needs to be highly relevant, educational, informative and even entertaining so that consumers can enjoy it. The more quality your content brings, the more engaged your visitors will be. Engaged visitors are more likely to convert than others.
Always Perform a Speed Test
Circumstances change regarding website performance.
Even when you optimize everything, it doesn’t mean it will work exceptionally well forever. By performing a website speed test regularly, you can make sure that your website is always fast enough and that your page loading time meets consumer expectations and demands.
If your website slows down for any reason, a speed test will be able to tell you what the issue may be so that you can fix it as soon as possible.
If you think that you don’t have to keep an eye on website speed, you will prove yourself wrong when your conversion rate starts to decrease.
Website speed is a crucial factor in customer experience. No matter what you do to improve your website, your leads simply won’t convert if your website takes too long to load.
Consumers simply don’t tolerate sluggish websites, and they won’t convert no matter how great your offers may be.