In a world where everything is fast-paced, it would be normal for any Internet user to want speedy connectivity at all times, especially when they’re using their mobile devices while on the go. Mobile users also tend to be less patient when it comes to the loading speed of websites. Because they’re typically always in a hurry, they just drop any mobile site that takes three seconds or more to load.
If you value the traffic, leads, and conversion that may come from mobile users, you have to make sure that your mobile website is up to snuff when it comes to speed. Here are some tips that could help you speed up the mobile version of your website.
If you want to make your website not just perform well, but also look great on mobile, try Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project (AMP). Mobile pages created on AMP using ultra-minimalistic HTML are specifically designed to load fast on any mobile device or distribution platform.
Each website has tons of code, and those codes have so many characters that some of them might just be unnecessary. You can “minify” your code—and make the site lighter—by removing those unnecessary characters. The lighter your site, the faster its loading times.
Custom fonts look nice, but they can slow down your site since such fonts are code-heavy. It would be great if you can avoid them altogether, but if you had to use them, keep them to headings or somewhere else they’re needed. With lesser or no custom fonts, your site will be lighter and faster.
Large images are also guilty of keeping your site’s loading speed down, and for obvious reasons. If possible, don’t use images at all, save for your site’s logo or any such important graphic. If you have to use images, then you should use compressed ones and scale them specifically for smartphones and tablets. Simpler and smaller images will always speed up your mobile website and should always be a part of your on site SEO strategy.
With the Google Mobile First Index already in full swing, making your mobile website faster would be in your best interest. After all, the Mobile First Index will have Google will base its rankings and search listings on your mobile site, regardless of the platform used for the search. Boosting page speed also happens to be one of the best practices for mobile SEO, so get up and optimize your mobile website now.
Unless there is a need to use redirects, you should avoid them as much as possible. The automatic process of moving a visitor to another location without them having to click anything is time-consuming. Redirects are even slower on mobile networks, and you could lose potential customers that way.
It is common for websites to implement a signup process that takes seven to eight steps to complete. If you own one such site, we recommend that you streamline the entire thing by cutting the steps down to about four or so. You’ll be cutting down on the code as well, so it would make your site lighter and load faster on mobile.
We understand that there is a need for website owners to make their business look gorgeous online. However, they also have to know that a beautifully-designed website also means so much more code, which, as we have been hammering above, can make the site heavy and suffer from low loading speeds.
Then again, it’s still possible to have a great-looking website even with a simpler—and therefore less code-heavy—design. A good web designer should be able to achieve a simple and responsive design with ease.
Mobile browsers can now save web data on mobile devices for later use. If you activate browser caching, the loading time of your pages would be so much faster since the browser already “remembers” them.
Before you make any tweaks to your mobile website, we suggest that you use Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool first to test your site speed. That way, you will learn exactly what needs to be done to speed up your mobile website.
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