5 common mistakes developers do that affect page load time

Speed is the key to future success!

It is true, and there’s no denying that a nimble page beats a slow loading page. Interestingly, both the user and the search engines are aware of the fact. To see where the website speed stands in the current scenario, have a look at the following important stats:

• 85% of mobile users expect pages to load as fast, or faster than they do on desktop
• 14% of shoppers expect pages to load instantly on mobile
• 88% people on the internet would prefer an online retailer with a high-performance website experience
• Customers remember that the online loading time is 35% longer than what actually is supposed to be
• 60% of mobile internet users say they’ve encountered at least one problem while browsing within the last 12 months
• If you are running an E-commerce site making $100,000 per day, a one-second page delay could cost you $2.5 million per year in lost sales
• Due to abandoned shopping carts, around $18 billion are lost annually

Looking at the above stats, it’s time to take a look at your website’s performance in terms of page load time for the year 2021. However, you will see many different metrics that are considered to determine your page load time. But, there are some common mistakes, which developers in the Mobile app development company don’t even realize that we are making, and they affect the page speed.

In this blog, we are going to discuss five common mistakes that developers should avoid making as they are affecting the page load time. But, before that, let’s develop a basic understanding of the page load time and how it affects the website performance.

PAGE LOAD SPEED CAN BREAK OR MAKE THE WEBSITE

A web page loads in bits and pieces due to the elements included in the page which could be either a photo, a form, or an ad. All these elements contribute to the overall load time of a web page. As you begin to work on improving the load time, understand why it matters:

• Consumers are impatient and can’t wait for longer to get the page loaded.
• According to Google’s recent announcement page load speed is at the heart of the "core web vitals, "which are considered as a ranking factor.

When a page takes more than 3 seconds, it means that you will be losing half of your visitors. Now it affects the overall performance, which can make or break your website online in 3 different ways:

VISIBILITY

Since Google considers it an important factor in core web vitals for ranking a website, you may have to face issues with your visibility if it doesn’t crawl your website.

CONVERSION

The faster your page loads the faster you get engagement. On the other hand, slow websites surely kill conversions as users are impatient and reluctant to invest their time in slow responsive sites. Moreover, it adds to their frustration which will increase the bounce rate of your website as they will leave your site without buying anything.

USABILITY

From the usability perspective, the more your load speed would be, the better is the user experience. Ultimately, you would have an upper hand over customer retention and better engagement.

5 COMMON MISTAKES DEVELOPERS MAKE THAT AFFECT PAGE LOAD TIME

After understanding the impact of page load speed, let’s move ahead with the five common mistakes that developers in the website development company generally make, which contribute to the slow speed of your page:

1. HTTP REQUESTS

HTTP requests are made to fetch a file, page, or image from a web server. Go through the Network tab in Developer Tools to monitor how your applications make many network requests. According to Yahoo, 80% of your application’s load time depends on HTTP requests, which indicates that reducing the number of requests would help increase page load time. You can take the following measures to reduce the page load time:

• CSS files are render-blocking, here combining the CSS and JS files would help reduce the time
• Go for lazy loading or on-demand loading that focuses on loading a few images which are important at the loading time
• Allow for caching static images or content for which you won’t have to send new HTTP requests when a user visits your site

2. ABSENCE OF CDN

Another issue is the absence of CDN that increases the page load time in case the physical location of the user is far from the server. In a CDN servers are distributed across various geographical locations. And, using it will enable users to fetch the required resources from the nearest server available. CDN helps to reduce network latency and produce lower TTFBs.It could be a little expensive but is effective in improving your application load time.

It will help developers to share, document, and reuse independent components between projects. You can useit to maximize code reuse, keep a consistent design throughout the website, easy collaboration, and speed delivery.

3. LARGE FILE OR PAGE SIZE

Large file or page size also contributes to the issue because retrieving them is time-consuming that adds up to the loading time of the web page. Here compressing the file size in theGzip file will help to a great extent because it easily locates the similar codes in your file and replaces them to reduce file size. It will save up to 50% or 70% of the file size that will help reduce page load time.

4. LOADING HTML, CSS, AND JS FILES IN ONE GO

Loading all the resources at the same time increases the page load time because it blocks the rendering; so, developers should avoid making this mistake. Your website is made up of CSS and JavaScript files where these scripts load either synchronously or asynchronously.

In synchronous loading the files load one at a time, where it appears one by one on your web page. Here the browser stop loading other elements until the file has been fully loaded.

On the other hand, asynchronous loading enables multiple files to load at the same time. Here you should go for defer loading to eliminate render-blocking resources.

5. MORE REDIRECTS

Too many redirects hurt the loading time of your website as every time a page redirects prolongs the HTTP request and response process. Eliminating unnecessary redirects would help reduce page load time by limiting the number while building internal links and menus. You can use redirect mapping tools available online such as screaming frog to identify the unnecessary ones and deleting them as they aren’t serving any purpose.

MAKE SURE YOUR WEBSITE’S PERFORMANCE IS BETTER THAN THE INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR PAGE LOAD TIMES

As you can see from the graphic above, each second that your page takes to load makes a huge difference in bounce rate. If your website is better than the average one, then that is a huge advantage for you as it will enhance the user experience. Moreover, if you’re under Google’s best practice benchmark, then you have a higher chance that your website will have an individual page rank.

Now, with the dawn of the new Year, it’s time you should put in a little more effort to enhance the user experience and make sure that your site beats the industry benchmark.

Sidharth Jain, Proud founder of GraffersID, Web and Mobile App Development Company based in India. Graffersid has a team of designers and dedicated remote developers, Trusted by startups in YC, Harvard, Google Incubation, BluChilli.