Webpages taking forever to load? Images not showing up as fast as you want? Here, we dive into some effective techniques for improving page speed and enhancing the performance of a digital publishing website.
Content, design, and SEO optimization are all elements that help develop any publisher’s reputation and visibility. The lynchpin of all things user experience, however, will almost always be page speed.
In fact, research shows that 46% of users will not return to poorly performing websites and a quarter abandon the site completely if the loading time is longer than four seconds.
Why is page speed important for publishers?
Site performance is crucial for digital publishers in order to engage readers, build a more loyal audience, and drive revenue. In addition, page speed is used as a ranking factor for Google search results and it’s important for users looking for quick answers.
One bad impression can cause a user to go elsewhere for the information they are looking for and not consider the site’s authority in the future. Furthermore, Google penalizes sites with higher bounce rates as the algorithm will assume the site has a poor user experience (UX).
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core web vitals are user experience metrics that act as one part of Google’s Page Experience signals to help optimize Google Search results. It breaks down into three core areas.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP determines the loading time or performance of the website’s parts by focusing on how long it takes for the largest element on site to load on the screen, using it as a gauge for the overall website performance. Google advises a load time of 2.5 seconds or less to provide a good user experience.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
This metric assesses the visual stability and unexpected changes in a website’s page layout by analyzing how much an element moves, for example, an image, font, or additional material.
First Input Delay (FID)
FID measures the responsiveness of an interaction with an element on a page that’s instigated by the user. This could be a link, a call-to-action button, a drop-down menu, or something similar.
These three segments are great starting points for publishers to begin improving their page speed. In a detailed technical blog, Yelp’s former Group Tech Lead describes how the company improved UX and increased conversions by 15% by tackling FID. The problems originally stemmed from new features to help ad campaigns – something we’ll touch on later.
Five tips to improve page speed
There are hundreds of ways to improve page speed, ranging from minor tweaks to complete website redesigns. Here are five examples of how to improve page loading times quickly.
1. Optimize images and files
Images are vital for digital publishers as they add context and substance to a story – but they can also significantly impact page speed. Since high-resolution images are often large in size, this ultimately leads to slower page load times.
Websites and publishers can use techniques such as lazy loading, which instructs web elements to only show when a user reaches the point of interaction.
However, for publishers looking to utilize high-resolution images without impacting page speed, embedding SmartFrame images might be a good alternative. SmartFrame’s technology offers more engaging images, with features such as full-screen viewing and Hyper Zoom, with next to no impact on page speed thanks to lazy loading.
2. Use a content delivery network (CDN)
A CDN is a network of servers spread across multiple locations that store copies of your website’s content to improve site load time.
When a visitor enters your website, the content is delivered from the server closest to their location, which is especially useful for digital publishers with a global audience. In fact, almost half (45%) of the world’s top one million websites use a CDN to provide a more reliable web experience.
3. Audit plugins
There’s a misconception that layering plugins will help improve overall page speed. However, if a publisher installs too many to its content management system (CMS) without fully understanding whether these have been activated, they can create unnecessary HTTP requests that will ultimately slow down the website.
4. Avoid reliance on programmatic advertising
Though it’s a streamlined process of gaining revenue, and is particularly useful for smaller websites, programmatic advertising does have a number of drawbacks, including an impact on page speed.
For example, Bloomberg decided earlier this year to shift away from programmatic display ads in order to improve user experience and minimize brand safety concerns. This is just one example of a reputable publishing site that’s decided to focus more on direct ad buying and relationships.
Given the nature of programmatic advertising and its use of real-time, open-market, live auctions, this method of advertising can put significant strain on the performance of a website.
Moreover, some ads will feature high-resolution creatives, and without control over this, a site’s speed can be significantly harmed. This is particularly true for webpages with multiple ad slots since each of these requires separate ad requests and auctions, which can further increase the overhead and slow down webpage loading.
To help ensure these ads are safe, businesses will add other plugins to analyze the creative. As mentioned above, however, having too many plugins switched on will harm overall site performance.
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5. Apply browser caching
Browser caching allows a website to store certain elements, including images, CSS, and JavaScript files, on a visitor’s local device.
This means that when a visitor returns to a website, the stored elements can be loaded from the local cache instead of being forced to download again, thus reducing load times.
Small tweaks can lead to big results
Google will always be free to change how it decides to rank websites. But, as we highlighted earlier, page speed is always going to resonate with both search engines and users.
Using the Core Web Vitals as guidelines and implementing some of the techniques mentioned above can all contribute to faster page loading times.
We’ve done our best to keep away from anything too technical and highlight the quick wins that publishers can implement to increase and maintain website traffic.
Every second counts in the digital world, so take the necessary steps to ensure your website loads quickly and efficiently.
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