If you have done some research into SEO practices, you'll know that website speed is really important.

Site or site rate is a rank factor used by Google, providing sites with faster rates precedent in search results. It is all part of delivering better outcomes to their users as the fact is, people don't want to hang around for slow-loading page test; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnbUXnmk6kw, websites.

The answer is, not complete control, but you still have choices to optimize website speed.

Here's what you can do:

Get our checklist variant here: Things to do to speed up your Squarespace site



SEO is important concerning your website becoming found organically in search results, however, that is not the only motive to prioritize site speed. Think about what you do if you land on a web site which takes a long time to load.

Most people won't hang about. This study shows they will abandon the site if it doesn't load within three seconds. This looks like a brief time, but with improvements in online speeds over time, we have been conditioned to expect that things must get the job done quickly. If not, there is guaranteed to be a rival website to test out instead.

So while SEO is a concern, there's another thing which ought to be a bigger concern: consumer experience. Improving website speed delivers a much better user experience and ensures your site visitors are more inclined to stick around a little longer.

Test your website first

How can you know if your website requires less than three seconds to load, or when any modifications you've made any difference to speed? You may examine your site rank .

There are a couple different tools available to assist and many will also create a report highlighting problem areas. This helps so you are not left to guess.

Squarespace recommends that you use their built in tools, or even a tool such as Pingdom to ensure you're receiving accurate results. If you are using the Google Chrome browser, you can follow those steps:



Open Developer Tools.


Click on the Network tab.

Refresh the page to show the loading time.

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

Methods to accelerate a Squarespace Site

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



This is a fundamental that we would anticipate most designers to be familiar with, yet large picture files are still frequently 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 do not need print quality images to attain this.

Some key things to consider are:

Use JPG over PNG many of the time (a few vector images don't seem so great in JPG).

Maintain the image width low. Squarespace advises that you don't go past 1500 - 2000 pixels in diameter, but in some cases, you could have the ability to make them even smaller.

The Getty stock images or free Unsplash images you can download and insert directly through Squarespace are usually big. To make them smaller, you could download them from the webpage you have put them on and use a picture resizing tool to reduce file size.

There are several free picture resizing tools.


TURN ON SSL


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

You could also consider switching on the HSTS option, which has been proven to improve security and SEO.



Shifting on AMP (Accelerated Mobile Web Pages) can considerably improve page rank for blog articles, especially on mobile devices. It's pretty important to keep in mind mobile when you're taking a look at page speed because so much surfing action happens on cellular devices.

When AMP is switched on it is going to deliver quite fast-loading site pages to mobile users, as long as those have been accessed via a Google search.

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



There are all sorts of third party scripts you may be running on a Squarespace site, including those associated with plugins you decide to add. As a general rule, only add those which are absolutely necessary to accomplish the functionality you need on your site - extras can slow you down.

If you've had your site going for a while and you are not sure what impact third-party scripts are getting on site speed, it's well worth doing an audit. The website speed tools we discussed previously can inform you which are slowing your website down.

Another thing we would suggest is being quite selective in the first place about which third party plugins you let. A general rule is to select reliable, well-reviewed tools that have a clear history of regular upgrades by the owner. Plugins that are not kept updated can really drag a website down.


DON'T GO TOO FONT-CRAZY!


We know. Some fonts are just so stylish, you need to get them on your own website. Web fonts can really produce the look of a site, however the problem is that they can also drag down load speed.

There are a set of typefaces that are considered "web safe" with nominal impact on website speed, but of course these are your boring ones, like Times New Roman or Arial. Most individuals do opt to use some type of internet fonts to spice up the appearance of the webpage.

Here are some items to consider:

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

Try to stick with just 1 internet font. If you go too"font-crazy," it's likely to slow your site down.


USE CUSTOM VIDEO THUMBNAILS


Have you got embedded videos in your Squarespace website? If this is the case, choosing the custom thumbnail alternative for video embeds can help to improve speed.

There are two or three reasons for this: firstly, without the custom thumbnail, Squarespace will have to look up content and load it from whichever site that the video is uploaded too (e.g. YouTube or even Vimeo). This happens even when the visitor does not click on the video and could lead to a lag if big files are being loaded.

Second, doing without a custom thumbnail leaves you open to third party cookies being run on your site - another speed bump.


ENABLE AJAX LOADING


This means it may tell browsers to load your site page at a time, speeding the overall load time for visitors.

Final thoughts

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

The hints listed above should keep your pages under that 5mb threshold. We would also add that it is important to avoid a lot of embeds on one page. These can otherwise invite third-party scripts to operate and can inhibit your speed.