If you've done any research into SEO practices, you'll understand that site speed is pretty important.

Site or page speed is a rank variable used by Google, giving sites with faster rates precedent in search results. It is all part of delivering better results to their users as the truth is, people don't need to hang around for slow-loading sites.

The solution is, not complete control, but you still have choices to optimize site speed.

Here's what you can do:

Get our checklist version here: Things to do to Accelerate your Squarespace website



SEO is important in terms of your site becoming found in search results, however, that's not the only motive to prioritize site rank. Think of what you do if you land on a website that takes a long time to load. Do you hang around and waitfor?

Most people won't hang about. This study shows they will depart the site if it doesn't load within 3 seconds. This seems like a short time, but with improvements in online speeds through the years, we have been prepared to expect that things should get the job done fast. Otherwise, there is guaranteed to be a rival site to check out instead.

So while SEO is a concern, there is one more thing that should be a bigger concern: consumer experience. Improving website speed delivers a better user experience and ensures that your website visitors are more inclined to stick around a little longer.

Test your website first

You can test your site rank first.

There are a couple distinct tools available to assist and most will also generate a report highlighting problem areas. This is helpful so you're not left to guess.

Squarespace urges that you use their built in tools, or a tool such as Pingdom to ensure you're getting accurate results. If you're using the Google Chrome browser, then you can follow these steps:



Click on the Network tab.

Refresh the page to display the loading time.

They say that this is prone to error because it is designed for developers who code their sites from scratch and can yield false negatives for Squarespace sites that are constructed on a custom CMS. That means if you use it and register an error, that does not necessarily imply there is anything wrong with webpage speed on your site.

Ways to speed up a Squarespace website

Listed below are a Couple of places where you may Have the Ability to Decrease load speed of your Website and of individual pages:


REDUCE IMAGE SIZES


This is a basic that we would anticipate most designers to know, yet large image files are still often the culprit behind slow-loading pages. We know - you are attempting to hit the ideal balance with picture quality and keep that sharp appearance onscreen, but you don't need print quality pictures to attain this.

Some key things to remember are:

Use JPG over PNG many of this time (some vector images don't seem so good in JPG).

Maintain the image width low. Squarespace recommends that you don't go beyond 1500 - 2000 pixels in diameter, but in some cases, you may be able to make them even smaller.

The Getty stock images or free Unsplash pictures you can download and insert directly via Squarespace are often big. To make them smaller, you can download them from the webpage you have put them on and utilize a picture resizing tool to decrease file size.

There are numerous free image resizing tools. For example: PicResize, ResizeImage and Tiny PNG.


TURN ON SSL


A sort of"quick win" using Squarespace website speed is to make sure that you're using the SSL option. Why? Since your site will be delivered through the faster HTTP/2 protocol.

You can also consider switching on the HSTS option, that has been found to improve security and SEO.



Shifting on AMP (Accelerated Mobile Web Pages) can significantly improve page speed for blog posts, especially on mobile devices. It's pretty important to remember mobile once you're taking a look at page speed because so much browsing action happens on cellular devices.

When AMP is switched on it will deliver quite fast-loading blog pages to mobile users, as long as people have been obtained via a Google search.

AMP operates by stripping out"non-essential" programming by a page and using clever caching to load pages immediately. It's well worth reading up on it first as it simplifies a number of standard Squarespace blocks, such as type cubes and code blocks.


WATCH THIRD-PARTY scriptS


There are all types of third-party scripts you might be running on a Squarespace website, including those associated with plugins you choose to add. As a general rule, only add those which are absolutely vital to achieve the performance you want on your website - extras can slow you down.

If you've had your site going for some time and you're not sure what impact third-party scripts are having on web site speed, it's well worth doing an audit. The website speed tools we mentioned previously can tell you that are slowing your site down.

The other thing we would suggest is being rather selective in the first place about which third-party plugins you allow. A general rule is to select reputable, well-reviewed tools which have a clear history of regular updates by the proprietor. Plugins that are not kept updated can really drag a site down.



We know. Some fonts are just so trendy, you have to have them on your own website. Web fonts really can produce the appearance of a website, however the problem is they can also drag load speed.

You will find a set of typefaces which are considered "web safe" with minimal effect on site speed, but naturally those are the dull ones, like Times New Roman or Arial. The majority of individuals do opt to use some form of web fonts to spice up the look of the webpage.

Here are some things to consider:

There is some evidence to suggest that Google Fonts load more quickly than Typekit fonts. (Both of which are available in Squarespace's web font library).

Try to stay with only one internet font. Should you go too"font-crazy," it is likely to slow your site down.


USE CUSTOM VIDEO THUMBNAILS


Have you got embedded videos on your own Squarespace site? If so, choosing the custom thumbnail option for video embeds can help improve speed.

There are a couple of reasons for this: firstly, without the custom thumbnail, Squarespace might need to look up content and load it out of whichever site speed google - https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=LnbUXnmk6kw - the video is uploaded too (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo). This occurs even if the visitor doesn't click on the video and may cause a lag if big files are being loaded.

Secondly, doing without a habit thumbnail leaves you open to third party biscuits being run on your site - yet another speed bump.


ENABLE AJAX LOADING


This implies it may tell browsers to load your site page at a time, speeding the total load time for people.

Final thoughts

Squarespace recommends that where possible, restricting your pages to below 5mb in size. This ought to keep you near optimum performance speed-wise.

The tips listed above should keep your pages under that 5mb threshold. We would also add that it is important to avoid too many embeds on one page. These can otherwise encourage third-party scripts to run and may inhibit your own speed.