10 Expert Ways to Boost Your Website Speed and Improve User Experience 

Consumers expect instant and easy online interactions. A lag in your website load speed or poor user experience could make the difference between a sale and a lost customer.  

Website speed is critical for conversions and SEO. Most customers expect your site to load in 3 seconds tops, or they will go elsewhere. The stats are clear. A mere 1-second delay in how fast your page responds can lead to a 7% drop in conversions. Google also uses site speed as a ranking factor, so a slow site will push you down the search results. It’s a double whammy.  

Fortunately, ironing out any glitches doesn’t have to be complicated. In this blog, we’ll look at 10 ways to boost your website speed and improve user experience – in plain English. 

Expert Ways to Boost Your Website Speed 

1. Prioritise loading the most important content first 
Rather than “eager/dynamic loading” (where everything loads at once), “lazy loading” (where content is loaded as needed as users scroll down the page) keeps your site looking fast. It can be especially useful on product-heavy e-commerce websites and helps minimise data consumption for users. 

2. Reduce image file sizes (without losing quality) 
Large image files are one of the most common reasons web pages load slowly. Images need to be compressed, resized, or saved in faster-loading formats like WebP to keep your visuals sharp and your page speeds zippy. 

3. Enable browser caching 
Browser caching allows visitors’ to save key information on their browser when they visit your website. This means their computer doesn’t have to download the same information (like images and scripts) each time they visit, speeding up the page load time. It’s a minor fix that has a big impact, especially if you want repeat customers. 

4. Switch to faster hosting 
Your hosting plan can play a major role in how responsive your website is. If you have a basic hosting package, you probably won’t have the bandwidth to keep things lightning fast. So, look for more solid, reliable website hosting solutions to ensure your site loads quickly, stays up and doesn’t crash when things get busy. 

5. Find and fix hidden issues with Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) 
There are quite a few tools to test and improve your website’s page load time performance. One of the most trusted is Google PageSpeed Insights, which will give you an overall score and highlight any areas for improvement, like messy code, image compression or server issues. The best performing websites will achieve a score of over 90 – anything below that, and your site needs some attention. 

Expert Ways to Improve User Experience 

Page speed is just one part of the equation – user experience (UX) goes hand in hand. There are many facets to UX design, but here are some simple ways to improve your website’s user experience. 

6. Keep the user journey simple and intuitive 
You want people to be able to find the exact information they need as seamlessly as possible. Simple navigation menus and buttons, uncluttered layouts, and user journeys that make sense are key UX design principles that keep visitors engaged and on your website. If customers get lost or end up in a digital cul-de-sac, they’ll give up and go somewhere else instead.  

7. Optimise your website to be mobile-friendly 
Mobile-first, faster websites lead to higher customer satisfaction. Most online searching happens on mobile phones, so your website needs to look and function perfectly on a mobile screen – no squashed text you’d need a magnifying glass to read or clumsy zooming necessary. Google also gives you extra search ranking Brownie points for this one, so it’s a winner on several fronts.  

8. Focus on the essential and ditch the clutter 
Clean web design not only helps improve page speed but also gives visitors clarity and space and gets straight to the key points – rather than overwhelming people with too much “stuff”. If your pages are too busy, your most helpful content will get lost in the noise. Make it as easy as possible for people to travel easily through your sales funnel and eliminate any obstacles to converting. 

9. Tell people what you want them to do with clear calls to action 
Don’t leave customers guessing. A good UX website prompts your visitors to take action with clear, engaging Calls to Action (CTAs). Use bold buttons that whisk them straight to your online shop or booking forms, etc. Keep your CTAs obvious and friendly and sprinkle them liberally throughout your website to guide customers in the right direction. Customers will appreciate the nudge. 

10. Update and maintain your website properly 
Like any other tech, websites need regular updates and maintenance to perform at their best. Leave your site to its own devices for too long and you’ll end up with broken links, outdated plugins, and a buggy, slow, unsafe site that annoys your customers and puts a dent in your brand’s reputation. If you can’t manage the website maintenance and updates yourself, find a website agency that can handle it all for you. 

How Web Adept can help you improve your website speed and improve UX  

These are just the top ten of ways we help our customers boost website speed and improve UX. There are plenty more areas where we use our decades of experience in website design to fine-tune site performance and make websites work harder for the businesses behind them. You can check out some of our design and development work here.  

If you’d like to know more about how the Web Adept teams could help you bring your own website up to speed, we’d be happy to have a no-obligation chat. Just send your query via our online contact form and we’ll be in touch. 

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