Having a fast website was one of the key ranking factors. And recent Google updates (July 2018) bolster site speed as a key quality signal for both desktop and mobile rankings. This further solidifies speed optimization as a major part of SEO.
But it’s not just about Google rankings, a slow website can affect user experience as well.
A few extra seconds of loading time can have a huge impact on your visitors and sales. Studies show that a 1-5 second delay increases bounce rates by up to 90%. Furthermore, Amazon discovered that a 1 extra second could cost them as much as 1.6 billion dollars a year.
How to make your site load in less than 1 second
1. Avoid Shared Hosting
2. Reduce HTTP requests
3. Utilize browser caching
4. Reduce server response times – fix DNS lookup
5. Enable CDN
6. Minimize redirects
7. Enable Gzip compression
8. Optimize images and galleries
9. Avoid CPU hogging plugins
10. Disable unused plugins
11. Consider using AMP
12. Avoid having ads on your site
13. Use fast social sharing buttons
14. Use a lightweight theme
15. Optimize above the fold loading (lazy loading)
16. Keep WordPress and your plugins up to date
17. Limit crawlers/spiders
18. Technical optimization
19. Use external hosting for videos
20. Limit/disable WordPress revisions
21. Optimize Databases
Click here to read full Guidelines.
