In any part of the world, 40-60% of internet users come from mobile devices. On average, half of your website’s traffic comes from phones, tablets, and other smart devices.
This is why mobile application development is a hot topic in the web design world.
The Mobile Experience
A website that does not respect the mobile experience fails. There are many people who do not have a computer and are restricted to mobile devices. You are basically losing out on half the potential leads. You must make sure that your website does not fail that way, and this is something we will help you with.
We have mentioned 7 tips to boost your website’s mobile loading speed!
Upgrade Your Hosting Service
Most startups choose the basic option when it comes to their website hosting. While this is affordable, it is not the best option in most cases. Some websites have higher requirements, and that is because of their content, which “kills loading time.” Content-heavy websites, meaning they contain a lot of images, videos, or other media, need faster server speeds to load quickly.
Consider three seconds to be the maximum time your website should take to load. Anything beyond that is unacceptable. While large files and poor coding contribute to slower loading speeds, server speed is the major factor. High-quality servers come with powerful processors and more RAM, making them perfect for large websites.
Add A Loading Spinner
While users are likely to leave a website if it does not load quickly, you can keep them engaged with a small animation. Even a small loading spinner is better than a blank screen. Take a look at WDI’s website. It displays the WDI logo with a little blinking animation. This assures the visitor that stuff is happening behind the screen and the website is loading.
To implement this, put the CSS at the top of the HTML files. Then move the JS scripts to the bottom of the HTML files. Implement the loading animation you like in the CSS.
JavaScript is extremely slow to load. Keeping it at the bottom ensures that it is loading in the background while the visitors have something to look at.
Minify & Optimise
Large CSS and JS files can put a heavy load on the server, thus reducing loading speed. This is where minification and optimisation can reduce code size without changing how the page looks.
Optimisation removes all unnecessary code and ensures that it is written in an efficient and streamlined way. Minification goes a step further by compressing the code and reducing the file size even more. It involves removing all unnecessary characters such as spaces, comments, and line breaks.
There are several tools available online that can help you optimise and minify your CSS and JS files, such as CSSNano, UglifyJS, and Minify.
Reduce Redirects
When you take a visitor to another location from your website using a link, that is known as a “redirect.” Each redirect contributes to a slower page loading speed. This is even worse on mobile devices, as they have unreliable networks.
The most common type of redirect is a 301 redirect. These can reduce website loading speeds to a great extent. While they are necessary, try to limit them as much as possible.
Cache Your Pages
Caching basically means storing your website’s data in the visitor’s browser. Unless you have a news website, most of the website’s data is usually not updated for weeks, if not months. So, the webpages can be stored offline in the visitor’s browser. This will increase your website’s loading speed, as the browser does not have to fetch data from the server to load the website.
In case the user has a slow internet connection, the device can fetch the website data that is stored in the browser.
Keep in mind that caching works based on the file name. If you have updated a file, just change the name so that the new version is cached.
Make Your Website Responsive
It is always better to design your website with mobile devices in mind rather than having to update it later, which will be more time-consuming. A responsive design is like water. It automatically adapts to different screen sizes.
At WDI, we have developed hundreds of websites and PWAs that function just as well on all devices, including smartwatches, smart TVs, etc. We can help you with your startup and develop the perfect website for it. Contact us now and let us have a discussion about your website.
Let us build something evergreen together!
