When a visitor comes to your blog, you want them to have the best experience possible. Content is key to keeping their attention. But the technical aspect of a blog’s loading time could determine whether or not they ever see what you’ve created. There are several factors that can keep your site from loading quickly which can turn users away. Keep reading to see how to check your blog load time with ways to speed it up.
Why is load time important?
Google loves sites that load fast for an optimal user experience. The world’s largest search engine also makes it easy to check your blog’s load time. Here are some tools.
Load Time Checker
Google offers an option, formerly PageSpeed Insights, to make sure your blog is mobile-friendly,
PageSpeedModule is a package you can unload to run on your blog and monitor its speed.
Pingdom is a web browser that allows you to “Enter a URL to test the load time of that page, analyze it and find bottlenecks.”
Compress your blog images
Reduce the size of images and their file space with plugins like Smush It.
The plugin Lazy Load doesn’t allow your images to all load on a page at once, instead the images load as the user scrolls down the page.
Contact Your Host
Call the help desk with your web host to ask about options to speed up your blog’s load time. Consider moving from shared hosting to a dedicated hosting plan.
Fix broken links
Coupon offers expire, affiliate programs change and some businesses go out of business. For influencers who’ve been blogging for several years, there’s a good chance you have broken links. Fix them easily with these broken link checker plugins.
Install Cache Plugins
The W3 Total plugin allows a blog’s pages to load faster. It’s considered one of the fastest performance optimizing plugins because it clears a visitor’s browsing history and reduces download times.
Remove old plugins
Although we’ve recommended helpful plugins, you may have old plugins installed that you no longer need or are no longer active. Delete plugins you no longer use to eliminate using too much storage space.
These are all changes you can do in a weekend work session to speed up your blog’s load time.
Bonus: When you’re visiting a friend’s house or at a computer store, bring up your blog on the closest web browser to see how your blog looks there. If their settings or screen size is different, you can see how your blog’s images look elsewhere.
Comment below: How often do you check your blog’s load time? What fixes have worked on your blog or your clients’ blogs?
