Site speed is the opening speed of websites that varies in relation to the response time of requests created by users. It covers the background response and presentation processes of a website in line with the requests of the visiting user. These periods vary in line with the demands of the users, the working principles in the background of the site and the presentation of the loads it contains.
The opening speeds of websites are a major determinant for users to have a positive or negative experience. It is seen with the data obtained that the users who visit the sites have a bad impression, especially as a result of the low opening speeds and the late opening of the sites.
What is Site Acceleration Service?
Website acceleration service is the work carried out to maximize the opening speeds of websites. Within the framework of this service, factors affecting site speeds are determined and a professional setup is created in order to eliminate these obstacles. In this way, the opening speeds of the websites will be maximized.
The site acceleration plans, which will be created thanks to the high-level predictions of experienced SEO experts, can be started by taking the opinions of the website owners. This plan can be used with a working environment that can be integrated into Technical SEO or SEO Consulting processes.
What Factors Affect Site Speed?
There are many factors that affect website speeds. These factors basically consist of technical details. However, some images and videos used for content creation and enrichment can directly affect site speeds. We can list the factors that affect site speed as follows;
Image Dimensions and Optimization
The images and videos used during the content production of the websites directly affect the site opening speeds. Excessive image sizes may cause the user to wait longer to reach the page. For this reason, images should not have very high dimensions. Care should be taken to use images under 100KB and if possible, next-generation image formats should be used.
HTML, CSS and JS Files
The HTML, CSS and JS files in the background of the websites directly affect the crawler bots to fully crawl the site and present it to the user. For this reason, it is recommended to use clean code and compress CSS and JavaScript files. Thanks to compression processes, fluency in the code structure is achieved and an improvement in site speeds is observed.
Server Response Times
The servers that allow websites to survive in the digital environment should be selected in accordance with the SEO infrastructure. Choosing inefficient servers will cause browsers to respond late to DNS requests and negatively affect site speeds. For this reason, servers with the best response times should be preferred.
HTTP Requests
HTTP requests are requests made by all the files that browsers need to download in order to reach users' websites. The density to be experienced as a result of the large number of these files can cause 80% of the opening speeds to be affected. For this reason, analysis should be done on behalf of the HTTP requests of the sites and unnecessary files that create excess requests should be removed.
Website Theme Selection
The site themes, which are dressed in the code structure in the background of the website, affect the opening speeds and user experience. It is important that the themes are responsive and selected as SEO compatible. Not using mobile-friendly themes and insisting on incompatible themes as optimization will cause inefficiency in site speed.
Database Size
The database is a section where all transactions made on the website are visualized and stored. Drafts that you create and delete on your site, spam comments, and media files in your trash are in the database. By cleaning and optimizing the database, it can play a key role in reducing the size and increasing site speeds.
How to Measure Website Speeds?
There are tools that provide services for measuring the speed of your websites and specially determined web pages. Using these tools, you can get analytics about your site's speeds. Google PageSpeed Insights is one of the most used site speed tools. This tool is made available for free by Google. With the PageSpeed tool, you can detect the factors that affect your site speeds and thus provide SEO service.