If you run a business, there’s no doubt about it – you need a website Not only that, but your website needs to be fast.

Internet connections are faster than ever before, and this means that users will not be happy to wait around for a website to load due to failures at your end. Slow websites will also be penalized by Google making it harder for customers to find your site in the first place. So, yes, speed really does matter, and it should be a priority for you if you’re serious about marketing and selling online.

To help you speed up your website, here are some tips:

Hire the Right Staff

The best thing you can do to ensure that your website stays up and running and up to speed is to hire a good network support services team, who have their eye on the ball and know exactly what is required to make your website and your network fast, simple and convenient to use. If you outsource, this should not set you back too much, and it will be worth every penny to have a reliable site up and running.

Size Images

Images take up a lot of space, and they can take a lot of time to load if they’re too big, which is why you should be using a content management system for uploading content to your website, and why you should be using it to adjust the sizes of your images, so that they don’t slow your website down.

Ditch Unneeded Plugins

There are so many free plugins that promise to make your website bigger and better, that it’s easy to get tempted into using them all, but the more plugins you have, the more sluggish your website will be. So, stick to the essentials if you want to see your speed increase.

Update Your Scripts

Many scripts that are commonly used by businesses need to be regularly updated. Sadly, many business owners are not aware of this, and they don’t make the necessary changes. This causes their websites to slow down, and they lose a not insignificant amount of business as a result. If you don’t want this to happen to you, check and update your scripts as soon as a new version becomes available.

Use Content Delivery Networks

Content Delivery Networks are huge networks of servers that are located all over the world. If you use them, your website’s visitors do not have to rely on coming through your web host’s central server, which will be a lot slower than CDN’s and which are much less likely to crash at an inopportune moment, because they enable visitors to access cached versions of the site from their closest web host.

Have CSS Files at the Top and Javascript at the Bottom of Pages

If you do this your website’s code will be a lot neater and this will ensure that pages load more quickly, crash less often and always look as intended. This is perhaps the best thing you can do to give your visitors a pleasant and efficient experience when visiting your site.