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website speed optimization

Speed Up Your Site with Website Speed Optimization

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by

Kenneth Keith
in

Is your website taking too long to load? Slow website speed can really hurt your online business.

Studies show that slow sites lose 7% in conversions, 11% in page views, and 16% in customer satisfaction. With these stats, making your site faster is key to better user experience and more profits.

Key Takeaways:

  • Slow website speed leads to a loss in conversions, fewer page views, and decreased customer satisfaction.
  • Improving page load times by just 1 second can boost customer satisfaction by 16%.
  • Websites that load within 2 seconds have a bounce rate of only 9%, while those taking 5 seconds have a bounce rate of 38%.
  • Google prioritizes faster sites in search rankings, giving you a competitive edge.
  • Optimizing your website speed can lead to higher brand perception and user retention.

What is Website Speed Optimization?

Website speed optimization makes websites load faster and work better. It uses strategies and techniques to cut down the time it takes for pages to load. This ensures a smooth experience for users. In today’s fast-paced online world, making websites quick is key to keeping visitors interested.

How fast a website loads affects important things like conversion rates and user experience. A study by Portent found that a B2B site that loads in 1 second gets three times more conversions than one that takes 5 seconds. This shows how crucial speed is for success.

Every extra second it takes for a page to load can hurt customer satisfaction, page views, and conversions. For example, a 1-second delay could cost Amazon $1.6 billion in sales each year. These figures show the big impact of slow websites on business.

Improving website speed involves many steps, including:

  • Choosing the right hosting to ensure good performance
  • Using content delivery networks (CDNs) to speed up page loads
  • Optimizing images by compressing them and choosing efficient formats
  • Reducing HTTP requests by combining JavaScript and CSS files
  • Using caching to make servers respond faster during busy times

By focusing on these areas, website owners can make their sites faster and more user-friendly. This leads to more conversions and happier users. Next, we’ll look deeper into why website speed optimization is so important.

Importance of Website Speed Optimization

Website speed optimization is key for a better user experience and higher conversion rates. When people visit a site, they want it to load fast and work smoothly. Slow sites can make users leave quickly, leading to lost sales and revenue.

Google says if a page takes over one second to load, bounce rates can jump by 123%. This shows how crucial it is to make your site fast to keep users interested. Also, 47% of people won’t wait for more than two seconds for a page to load. And 40% will leave if it takes more than three seconds.

Website speed affects search rankings too. Google started penalizing slow mobile sites in 2016. Now, mobile sites are checked separately for SEO, and speed matters a lot. So, making both your main and mobile sites fast is vital for good search rankings.

Slow sites can hurt conversion rates a lot. Studies show that making sites faster can greatly increase conversions. For example, the NCC Group saw a 7% boost in conversions by cutting page load time by 850ms. This shows how much faster sites can make a difference in profits.

Improving website speed is important for both desktop and mobile sites. Mobile users have their own way of browsing and expect fast sites. So, making your mobile site fast is just as important as your desktop site.

To make your site work well, focus on speeding it up. A fast and efficient site can make users happier, increase conversions, and help your site rank better in searches. This can bring more traffic and revenue to your site.

Key Statistics:

Bounce Rates Conversion Rates Revenue Impact
The number of single-page sessions of zero-second duration divided by the total number of page sessions on your website A one-second delay in page load speed leads to a 7% reduction in conversion rates for e-commerce websites If an e-commerce site makes $50,000 per day, a delay of one second could potentially result in approximately $1.28 million of lost revenue per year
Google mentions that bounce rates increase by 123% if page loading time exceeds one second The NCC Group observed a 7% increase in conversion rates for a client by reducing average page load time by 850ms Amazon reportedly loses 1% of its $141 billion online sales for every 100ms of latency
BBC risks losing 10% of its website’s visitors for every additional second of load time Faster websites tend to lead to more conversions, with a measurable difference in profitability –
Google states that a 0.5s site speed delay can lead to a 20% drop in traffic – –
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Impact of Website Speed on Conversion Rates

Website speed is key to getting more conversions. Studies show that fast-loading sites get more conversions. Every second faster makes a site 17% more likely to convert visitors.

A slow site can really hurt conversions. For instance, a five-second load time can make visitors leave quickly. But a site that loads in one second keeps visitors around.

Mobile users don’t like waiting for sites to load. Over half of them leave if it takes more than three seconds. This shows how important fast loading is for mobile users.

Successful conversion pages have fewer images than failing pages. The average page is heavy, with images and logos taking up a lot of space. Fewer images on successful pages mean faster loading times.

Website speed affects not just user behavior but also search engine rankings. Search engines like Google use page load time to rank sites. Slow sites might drop in search results, leading to less traffic and fewer conversions.

In conclusion, making your website fast is crucial for more conversions and better performance. Use techniques like minifying code and optimizing images to speed up your site. Regular checks and expert advice can help make your site faster and increase revenue.

Strategies for Website Speed Optimization

Improving website speed is key to a better user experience, lower bounce rates, and higher conversion rates. To make your site load faster, try these strategies:

  1. Audit Your Site: Do a full check to find what slows you down, like too many HTTP requests, big files, and slow code. Tools like PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, and GTmetrix can help.
  2. Prioritize Potential Fixes: Fix the problems you find in your audit. Focus on changes that make the biggest difference, like speeding up your server, making CSS and JavaScript files smaller, and cutting down on redirects.
  3. Evaluate Your Current Hosting Provider: Check how well your hosting is doing. Think about moving to a better hosting service that’s fast and reliable, or cloud-based options for WordPress sites.
  4. Consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN can make your site load faster, especially for people far from your server. CDNs store things like CSS, images, and JavaScript on servers around the world, making them quicker to load.
  5. Optimize Your Images: Make your images smaller without losing quality. Use the right file types like JPEG for photos and PNG for simple graphics. Plugins like “Optimole” can help make this easier and speed up your site.
  6. Reduce Total Redirects: More redirects mean longer loading times. Cut down on the number of redirects to make pages load faster.
  7. Limit HTTP Requests: Combine files, minify CSS and JavaScript, and compress files to cut down on HTTP requests. This makes your site load faster.
  8. Compress Files: Use Gzip to shrink HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. Smaller files load quicker, making your site faster.
  9. Leverage Caching: Use caching on both the browser and server to keep things like CSS, JavaScript, and images ready to go. This means they load faster on repeat visits.
  10. Track 404 Errors: Keep an eye on and fix any broken links and 404 errors. These can slow down your site and hurt user experience.
  11. Prioritize Mobile Optimization: Write your code with mobile users in mind. Since more people browse on mobile, making your site mobile-friendly can improve performance and user experience.
  12. Test Website Speed: Check your site’s speed often with tools like PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, and GTmetrix. Keep making improvements to keep your site fast and running smoothly.

Using these strategies can make your site load faster, improve user experience, and increase conversion rates.

Audit Your Site

Before you start making changes to improve your website, it’s key to do a full website audit. This is a detailed check of how your site does in terms of performance, SEO, and security. It spots areas that need work and gives you steps to make the user experience better and increase your site’s visibility in search results.

PageSpeed Insights by Google is a great tool for this. It looks at your website’s Core Web Vitals, like how fast it loads, how interactive it is, and how stable it looks. It also gives advice on how to get these metrics better and shares insights on your site’s performance.

During an audit, several important performance factors are checked against Google’s standards. These include how long it takes to load, the size of the page, and how fast the first byte is sent. By looking at these, you can find where things might be slow or not working right.

A website audit also looks for SEO issues that might be hurting your rankings. It finds broken links, 404 pages, and redirects that send traffic to your competitors.

It also checks how user-friendly your site is. It looks at things like if your site uses HTTPS, if it’s fast, if links go to safe places, if images are the right size, and if JavaScript is secure. All these things affect how people experience your site.

Total Requests Content Type Content Size Response Code Domain
33 29 images, 4 other 3.6MB 200 OK YourDomain.com

A website audit shows you how many requests are made to load a page, the size of different content, the response code, and where the content comes from. This info helps you see where you can make your site load faster.

By doing a website audit, you can find out what needs fixing and make your site better. Services like Domsignal offer tools that check important performance and SEO stuff. They give you steps to make your site faster, more visible, and more secure.

Prioritize Potential Fixes

After finding website speed problems, it’s key to focus on the most important fixes. This ensures visitors have a good experience. Here are some tips to help you pick the right fixes.

Server-Side Concerns

Server-side issues, like hosting or DNS problems, are crucial to tackle. They can slow down your site’s loading time. Slow server responses lead to frustrated visitors and higher bounce rates.

Google says bounce rates almost triple if pages take over three seconds to load. To fix this, check your hosting and switch to a faster option if needed. Using Cloudflare can also make your site up to 40% faster.

Optimization Efforts

Look at what you can optimize on your website too. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and WebPage Test to check your site’s speed. They give you tips to make it faster.

Google PageSpeed Insights looks at lab and real-world data to offer advice. It focuses on Core Web Vitals like Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift. These are key for a smooth user experience. Aim for an LCP under 2.5 seconds, an FID under 100 milliseconds, and a CLS under 0.1 for a great experience.

Evaluate Your Current Hosting Provider

Your choice of hosting provider is key to your website’s speed and performance. If your site is slow or you’re facing speed issues, it’s time to check your current hosting.

There are many hosting options like shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting. Shared hosting is affordable and splits resources among sites. It’s good for small sites with little traffic but might slow down due to sharing resources.

VPS hosting offers a balance between shared and dedicated hosting. Your site gets its own space on a server, which means better performance and faster speed.

For sites with lots of traffic, dedicated hosting is best. It means your website has its own server, giving you the fastest speed and performance possible.

When looking at your hosting, think about these points:

  1. Website Speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to check your site’s speed. Slow load times might be due to your hosting.
  2. Uptime Guarantee: Make sure your hosting offers a high uptime, like 99.95% or more. This ensures your site is always available to visitors.
  3. Server Location: Find out where your hosting provider’s servers are. Hosting your site near your audience can make it faster. Look for locations in Amsterdam, Singapore, or the US coast depending on your audience.
  4. Scalability: Choose a hosting provider that can grow with your site. They should let you easily add more resources like CPU, RAM, and storage as needed.
  5. SLAs and Compensation: Make sure your hosting has strong uptime guarantees and SLAs. These should offer compensation if your site goes down.

By looking at your current hosting and considering better options, you can make your website faster and more efficient. This will improve your users’ experience.

Hosting Type Page Load Time (before) Page Load Time (after)
Shared Hosting 12+ seconds Sub-seconds
Managed Cloud Hosting N/A 60%+ decrease

Switching from shared to managed cloud hosting can greatly improve your site’s speed. For an energy startup, moving to cloud hosting cut load times by 60% or more.

Consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Website speed is key for good search rankings and user happiness. Slow sites scare off visitors and hurt sales and revenue. Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help speed up your site.

A CDN is a network of servers in many places. They keep copies of your website’s content like images and videos. When someone visits your site, the CDN sends the content from the nearest server. This makes your site load faster.

CDNs are getting more popular, expected to handle 72% of internet traffic by 2022. They make speeding up your site easy without much work.

Services like Jetpack’s image and video CDNs make speeding up your site easy. They use their CDN to make your content faster from many places. This means less work for your main server and faster loading for everyone.

When picking a CDN, think about:

  • How much traffic your site gets: Make sure the CDN can handle it.
  • The types of content you have: Make sure the CDN can handle your images, videos, and more.
  • Your performance goals: Make sure the CDN can meet your speed needs.
  • Security: Pick a CDN that keeps your site and content safe.
  • How it fits with your site: Make sure the CDN works well with your current setup.

It’s important to check how well a CDN works. Look at page load time, how fast the first byte is sent, and more. These numbers tell you if the CDN is doing a good job.

Using a CDN like Cloudflare or Amazon CloudFront can make your site faster. CDNs send your site’s content from the closest server, so it loads quicker.

Content Delivery Network

For online stores, making your site fast is even more important. A study in 2022 showed that a 1-second delay in loading can really hurt sales. Sites that loaded fast had more sales than slower ones.

By 2021, retail e-commerce sales hit $5.2 trillion and are expected to grow. Fast loading times are key to winning in e-commerce.

Adding a CDN to your site can make it load faster, keep users happy, and increase sales. Don’t wait for Google to lower your rankings. Start using a CDN now to make your site faster and give users a great experience.

Optimize Your Images

Images are key in web design but can slow down your site. To make your website fast and smooth, it’s key to optimize your images.

Optimizing images means making them smaller without losing quality. This helps your website load faster and work better. By making images smaller, you can speed up your site a lot. In fact, images can be up to 5 times smaller with the right settings. Since images take up 21% of a webpage, making them smaller can really help.

There are two ways to make images smaller: lossless and lossy compression. Lossless keeps the image quality the same but makes it smaller. Lossy makes the file smaller by losing some data, which slightly lowers the quality. Picking the right type is important for quality and size.

Optimal image file types for web use: JPEGs, PNGs, and GIFs. Here’s when to use each:

  • JPEG: Best for complex color photos.
  • PNG: Great for images with transparent backgrounds or simple illustrations.
  • GIF: Good for images with few colors and animations.

Choosing the right file type and compression is just part of the story. There are many tools to help compress images. Tools like Image Optimizer, TinyPNG, ImageOptim, and JPEGmini can make images smaller without losing quality.

If you have a WordPress site, there are plugins that can automatically optimize your images. This makes it easier to keep your images fast.

But image optimization isn’t just about making files smaller. Resizing images and using responsive images can also help your site load faster.

Optimizing your images can make your website faster, improve the user experience, and boost performance overall.

Next, let’s look at another key way to speed up your website—reducing total redirects.

Reduce Total Redirects

Website redirects are key for a smooth user experience and keeping search engine rankings. But too many redirects can slow down your site, making it load longer and hurting the user experience. To make your website faster, it’s key to cut down on the number of redirects.

Redirects increase HTTP requests, which can make your server work harder and slow down your site. Looking into redirect chains can show you which ones you don’t need, helping your site speed up. Broken links and old redirects can really hurt your site’s performance and how users feel about it. Regularly cleaning up and updating your redirects is a must for speed and performance.

When setting up redirects, choose permanent ones (301) for big changes like moving websites or changing URLs. These keep your site’s SEO value and make sure users get to the right place. Use temporary redirects (302 and 307) for short-term things like promotions or quick changes.

To boost your site’s performance, try to cut down on external redirects. Each extra redirect in a chain makes your site load slower, especially after 3-5 hops.

Redirects set through a database, like with a WordPress plugin, usually don’t slow down your site. But having over 50,000 redirect rules in your .htaccess file can slow things down. It’s important to manage your redirects well and avoid too many of them.

By cutting down on redirects, you can make your site load faster, improve user experience, and keep it running smoothly. It’s important to use redirects wisely, like avoiding unnecessary ones and updating your internal links. Keeping your site free of extra redirects is a big part of making it fast.

For more tips on reducing redirects for a faster website, check out these resources:

  1. How to Reduce Redirects for Website
  2. Do Redirects Add to Website Speed
  3. Redirects and Web Performance Best Practices

Limit HTTP Requests

To make your website load faster and improve user experience, it’s key to limit HTTP requests. Each request slows down the loading process as the browser fetches things like images, stylesheets, and scripts. This makes the site take longer to load.

Here are ways to cut down on HTTP requests:

  1. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files: Minification removes extra characters from these files. This makes them smaller and cuts down on the number of requests needed to load them.
  2. Combine CSS Sprites: This method lets you merge several images into one. It reduces the number of image requests and the overall HTTP requests for loading the page.
  3. Use Inline Images: Putting images directly into the page with the data: URL scheme can lessen HTTP requests, especially for small images.
  4. Optimize and Reduce External Resources: Cut out images, JavaScript, CSS, and plugins that aren’t needed. This reduces external HTTP requests.
  5. Consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN): CDNs link your site’s static content to servers worldwide. This lessens the load on your main server and speeds up loading for users in different places.

Using these strategies can greatly reduce HTTP requests and make your website load faster. This improves user experience and helps with your website’s SEO performance.

Example Table

Method Impact
Minification Eliminates unnecessary characters and reduces file sizes, leading to fewer HTTP requests
CSS Sprites Combines multiple images into a single image, reducing the number of image requests needed for page rendering
Inline Images Embeds image data within the page, aiding in reducing HTTP requests
Optimize and Reduce Removes unnecessary resources, reducing external HTTP requests
Content Delivery Network (CDN) Improves loading times by linking static content to servers globally

By applying these methods, you can make your website run smoother by cutting down on HTTP requests. This leads to faster loading times and happier users.

Compress Files

Compressing files makes websites load faster and improves the user experience. It reduces the size of files like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This is key to making websites run smoother.

Gzip is a popular way to compress files. It makes files smaller without losing quality. When turned on, Gzip compresses files before sending them to the browser, making pages load quicker.

Most compression methods clean up code by removing extra spaces, cutting out repeated parts, and deleting unnecessary commands. This makes files smaller, which means they transfer and load faster.

Why is compressing files good for websites? Big web pages take a long time to show up compared to small ones. Backlinko says big pages take 318% longer to load. Also, mobile devices take 87.84% longer to load web pages than desktops.

How fast a website loads affects its search engine ranking. Search engines like Google look at how fast a site loads. They prefer sites that load quickly and work well.

Compressing files not only makes websites faster but also helps businesses. For example, Vodafone sped up their website by 31%, which led to 5% more conversions and 2% fewer bounce rates. Carpe saw a 10% increase in visitors by making their site load faster.

To use file compression well, make sure your web host supports it, like Gzip. If needed, turn on compression to make files smaller and speed up your site.

Compressing files like CSS, JavaScript, and HTML cuts down the total size of a page. This makes pages load faster. Also, removing unused plugins and optimizing images before uploading helps make pages smaller and faster.

Compressed files help both desktop and mobile users. Sites that take a long time to load see a 123% increase in people leaving. So, making your site fast is key for all users.

Tools like RabbitLoader can help you get high scores on Google PageSpeed Insights and meet Core Web Vitals. Using browser caching and lazy loading for images cuts down on HTTP requests. This makes images load faster for a better user experience.

Using the right file compression and other optimization methods can greatly improve your website’s performance. This leads to better search engine rankings, more user engagement, and success for your business.

Leverage Caching

Website caching makes your site faster and more efficient. It stores things like images and code so they don’t need to be loaded every time someone visits. This makes your site load quicker and gives users a better experience.

Browser caching has many perks. It cuts down on the amount of data your site uses and reduces the number of requests to the server. This means your server works better and uses less bandwidth.

Google says that how fast a site loads is important for mobile searches. Using caching can make your site load faster. This could help your site rank better in search results.

There are many caching plugins out there to help you speed up your site. WP Rocket is a popular choice. It offers caching, compression, and more. Prices range from $49 to $249 a year, depending on what you need.

WP Fastest Cache is another good option. It gives you caching, compression, and more for free. For extra features, you can pay $49.99 a year.

Adding caching can really make your site run smoother. After you start using it, your site’s speed test scores can jump up to 100 points.

Caching not only makes your site faster but also saves money. It uses less bandwidth and might mean you don’t need to upgrade your hardware. Plus, it makes your site easier to use, making visitors happy.

For sites that reach people all over the world, using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help too. CDNs store copies of your site’s files on servers all over the globe. This cuts down on wait times for visitors everywhere.

In short, caching is key to making your website fast. It boosts speed, improves user experience, and might even help your site rank higher in search results. Whether you use a plugin or a CDN, caching is a big win.

Track 404 Errors

It’s important to track and fix 404 errors to make your website better for users and keep your online presence strong. A 404 error happens when someone tries to visit a page that doesn’t exist or has a broken link. These errors can make users unhappy, hurt your search engine rankings, and slow down your website.

When a user gets a 404 error, they might leave your site without looking around. This can hurt your SEO and make it harder for search engines to find your content. It’s a big problem for your online visibility.

404 errors can also make your website slower and harder to use. This can make visitors frustrated. If you have a lot of broken links, your server might get overloaded, causing downtime when you’re busiest.

But, there are ways to fix and reduce 404 errors. Using 301 redirects helps move users to the right page smoothly. A custom 404 error page can also make things better by offering help, ways to find what they’re looking for, or a search bar.

It’s key to keep an eye on 404 errors to stay ahead. Tools like Google Analytics and plugins can spot and fix broken links and missing pages. Google Search Console gives detailed info on URLs with 404 errors, helping you find and fix problems fast.

Google Analytics 4 has advanced tools for tracking 404 errors. It counts how often these errors happen and helps spot patterns. You can use filters to dig deeper into the issue. Custom reports in Google Analytics 4 give more insights into how users interact with your site and what they do when they hit a 404 error.

There are many reasons why 404 errors happen. Sometimes, people or search engines try to access pages that are gone. URL changes can also cause errors if old URLs are still used. Mistyping URLs or sharing wrong links can lead to 404 errors too.

It’s crucial to handle removed pages well. Using a 410 status code tells search engines the page was removed on purpose. A custom 404 error page is also a good idea. It helps users by offering ways to find what they need, search options, and keeps your brand looking good.

Conclusion

In today’s digital world, making your website fast is key for success. It helps give users a great experience, increases sales, and boosts your ranking on search engines. By using a detailed plan to speed up your site, you can make sure it loads quickly, keeps visitors interested, and gets them to take action.

Here are the main points from this article on making your website faster:

  1. Audit your site: Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to check how fast your site is. This helps you find ways to make it better.
  2. Prioritize potential fixes: Fix important speed issues and improve user experience. This includes reducing redirects, making images smaller, and cutting down on HTTP requests.
  3. Evaluate your current hosting provider: Pick a hosting service that focuses on speed and uptime for the best performance.
  4. Consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN helps make your content load faster by storing it on servers all over the world.
  5. Optimize your images: Make images smaller without losing quality to speed up your site.
  6. Leverage caching: Use browser caching to save parts of your site on visitors’ computers. This means they don’t have to download everything again next time they visit.
  7. Track 404 errors: Keep an eye on and fix any broken links or missing pages. This makes your site better for users and helps avoid problems with your site’s speed.

By following these tips and keeping an eye on your site’s speed, you can make sure it runs smoothly. This will help you keep visitors, increase sales, and stay ahead in the fast-moving digital world.

FAQ

What is website speed optimization?

Website speed optimization makes websites load faster and work better. It uses strategies and best practices.

Why is website speed optimization important?

It’s key because it makes users happy, boosts sales, and helps with search rankings.

How does website speed affect conversion rates?

A fast-loading site gets more sales than a slow one. Every extra second can drop sales a lot.

What are some strategies for website speed optimization?

Strategies include checking site speed, fixing key issues, picking the right hosting, using CDNs, optimizing images, cutting down on redirects and HTTP requests, compressing files, using caching, fixing 404 errors, focusing on mobile users, and testing speed.

How can I audit my site’s performance for speed optimization?

Use tools like PageSpeed Insights to check your site’s speed. Also, check how it works on different devices to find what needs work.

How should I prioritize potential fixes for website speed optimization?

Focus on what visitors care about most. Look at server issues and use speed tool advice to guide your fixes.

How does the hosting provider impact website speed?

Hosting affects speed. Shared hosting can slow things down. VPS hosting helps by giving each site its own space. Dedicated servers give the fastest speeds.

What is a content delivery network (CDN) and how can it improve website speed?

A CDN stores your site’s content in many places. It sends content from the nearest server to users, making your site faster.

How can I optimize images to improve website speed?

Compress images to make them load quicker. Use tools for this and try the WebP format for better size and speed.

How can I reduce redirects and HTTP requests to improve website speed?

Fewer redirects and requests speed up your site. Use a CDN and shrink CSS and JS files to help.

How can I compress files to improve website performance?

Compressing files makes them smaller and faster. Gzip is a good tool for this without losing quality.

How can caching be leveraged to enhance website speed?

Caching lets browsers save some content for quicker loading. Many CMS systems and plugins can boost caching.

Why is it important to track and resolve 404 errors?

Fixing 404 errors makes for a better user experience. Dead links can lose customers. Regular checks and fixes help keep users happy.

What are the key takeaways of website speed optimization?

Making websites faster is key for a good user experience, more sales, and better search rankings. Use audits, fix issues, check hosting, use CDNs, optimize images, reduce redirects, compress files, use caching, fix 404s, focus on mobile, and test speed to improve your site.

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