I'm very excited to start writing articles related to Blogging.Today most of the bloggers face trouble because of their blogs/websites slow loading time, so I decided to write a useful article that would help all the bloggers to make most out of this post.
Bloggers and Webmasters mainly concentrate on providing useful information to their viewers with a good user experience. Just like Blog bounce rate, Blog loading time has a huge impact on search engine ranking. Before 2010, Google did not considered blog/website loading time as a factor in Page Rank Algorithm but, On April 9th 2010 Google included blog loading time as one of the factors determining the Page Rank of a website.
Matt Cutts said that though blog loading time may not be a heavy factor now, but it will play an important role in the future PR Updates.Blog loading time also shows its impact on blogs traffic as well.
How to Check Blog's Speed?
There are numerous tools available on Internet that do the job for you but, I recommend all the bloggers to use Google Speed Test Tool because it is the best amongst all and even I use the same.- Go to Google Speed Test Tool
- Enter the URL of your site and check the speed
- Experienced Bloggers can use Web Page Test Tool (It is a bit advanced compared to Google Speed Test Tool).
Tips to Reduce Blog Loading Time:
1. Compress Images before Uploading:
This is a major factor that would increase the blog loading time. Many Bloggers(newbies) upload the images directly without compressing them, this may cause a severe harm to their blog. WordPress has some plugins like Smushit, that would compress the images when they are uploaded.There are no such plugins available for Blogspot blogs,hence they have to use third party services like Yahoo Smushit and Puny Pny.
2. Give Proper Dimensions and Resize the Images:
Once the images are compressed, you need to resize the image that would be suitable for the page layout. You can use Cropp.me to resize images online.
3. Minimize the use of Javascripts/Plugins/Flash:
Try to remove unwanted Javascripts and Plugins. This is the first message that would be shown in the Google Speed Test Tool, if your website/blog speed is slow.
4. Decrease the number of Social Share Buttons
As the Social share buttons are Javascripts managed by the third party service, they may take some to load thereby increasing your blog loading time. Try only to use Share buttons of Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google+, Reddit because generally they are the major sources of web traffic.
5. Do not use Images as Background's
Few Bloggers use large images as their blog's background. Actually they are doing a blunder, because a background image repeats itself in both directions there by slowing down 50% of blog loading time.
6. Limit the Number of Posts to 5 per Page
As the number of posts in a page increases, blog loading time also increases so try to display optimal number (i.e 5 posts would be better) per page.
7. Minimize Ads on the Blog page
Most of the Advertisement banners are coded in java script and as discussed java script would increase the loading time of blog. Use reliable Advertising Networks like Google Adsense,Yahoo & Bing Ads, Infolinks etc. Some Advertising networks like Adbrite,Technorati Media would give a good payout but has some effect on blog;s loading time.
8. Avoid Linking to Blog Directories
I would advise all the Bloggers not to link to Blog Directories because it would increase your blog loading time and also Google will penalize(ban) such blogs. (This was introduced in Google Panda & Penguin Updates).
ALSO CHECK: How to Increase your blog traffic with Reddit
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, like blog's bounce rate, blog loading time does not have much significance in determining Page Rank as of now but, the future Page Rank Algorithm updates might use it as a significant attribute in determining the Blog's page rank and SEO as well.So, I would advise all the bloggers to take care of their blog's speed.
Feel free to discuss about the topic and to give your feedback in the comments below..:)
