(Image: https://farm5.static.flickr.com/4183/34176822971_fbaf7f2ed6.jpg)If you have done any research into SEO practices, you will know that website speed is pretty significant.
Site or page rate is a ranking variable used by Google, providing websites with faster speeds precedent in search results. It's all part of delivering better results to their users as the truth is, people don't want to hang around for slow-loading sites.
Together with Squarespace being a hosted platform, people often wonder how much control they have over website speed. The solution is, not complete controller, however you still have choices to maximize website speed.
Here's what you can do:
Get our checklist variant here: What to do to Accelerate your Squarespace website
Site speed: It matters
Search engine optimization is important concerning your site getting 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 which takes too long to load.
Most people won't hang about. This analysis shows they'll abandon the site if it does not load within three seconds. This looks like a brief time, but with improvements in online speeds through time, we have been prepared to expect that things should work fast. Otherwise, there's guaranteed to be a competing site to check out instead.
So while SEO is an issue, there is one more thing which ought to be a larger concern: consumer experience. Improving site speed provides a better user experience and means that your site visitors are more inclined to stick around a bit longer.
Test your Site first
You can examine your site speed .
There are a couple different tools available to assist and most will also create 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 receiving accurate results. If you are using the Google Chrome browser, then you can follow those steps:
Click on the Network tab.
Refresh the page to show the Load time.
1 tool Squarespace does not advocate is Google's Pagespeed Insights. They say that this is prone to error because it is designed for programmers who code their websites from scratch and can return false negatives for Squarespace websites which are built on a custom CMS. That means in the event that you use it and register an error, that doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with webpage rank on your site.
Methods to speed up a Squarespace Site
Listed below are a Couple of areas where you may be able to Decrease load speed of your site and of individual pages:
This is a fundamental that we would anticipate most designers to know, yet large picture files are still frequently the culprit behind slow-loading pages. We know - you are trying to strike the ideal balance with image quality and retain that sharp appearance onscreen, however you don't require print quality pictures to attain this.
Some key items to consider are:
Use JPG over PNG many of the time (some vector images do not seem so great in JPG).
Maintain the picture width low. Squarespace advises that you don't go past 1500 - 2000 pixels in width, but in some cases, you could be able to make them even smaller.
The Getty stock pictures or free Unsplash images you can download and add directly via Squarespace are usually big. To make them smaller, you can download them from the page you have put them and use an image resizing tool to decrease file size.
There are several free picture resizing tools. For example: PicResize, ResizeImage and Tiny PNG.
TURN ON SSL
A sort of“quick win” using Squarespace website speed is to be certain you're using the SSL option. Why? Because your website is going to be delivered through the quicker HTTP/2 protocol.
You could also consider switching to the HSTS option, which has been proven to improve security and SEO.
CONSIDER AMP FOR BLOG POSTS
Shifting on AMP (Accelerated Mobile Web Pages) can considerably improve firefox page speed speed for blog posts, particularly on mobile devices. It is pretty important to keep in mind mobile once you're looking at page speed because a lot of surfing action happens on mobile devices.
When AMP is switched on it will deliver very fast-loading site pages to mobile users, as long as those have been obtained through a Google search.
AMP works by stripping out“non-essential” coding from a page and using clever caching to load webpages quickly. It is well worth reading up on it first as it simplifies quite a few standard Squarespace blocks, such as type cubes and code blocks.
There are all types of third-party scripts you might be running on a Squarespace site, such as those connected with plugins you decide to add. As a rule of thumb, only add the ones which are absolutely necessary to achieve the performance you need on your website - extras may slow you down.
If you've had your website going for a while and you are not certain what impact third-party scripts are getting on site rate, it is well worth doing an audit. The site speed tools we mentioned previously can inform you which are slowing your site down.
Another thing we would suggest is being quite discerning in the first place about which third-party plugins you allow. A general rule is to go for reputable, well-reviewed tools that have a very clear history of regular upgrades by the proprietor. Plugins that aren't kept updated can really drag a website down.
We all know. Some fonts are so stylish, you have to have them on your own website. Web fonts can really make the appearance of a site, but the problem is they can also drag down load speed.
There are a set of typefaces that are considered “web safe” with nominal impact on site speed, but of course those are the dull ones, like Times New Roman or Arial. Most individuals do opt to utilize some type of web fonts to spice up the look of the webpage.
Here are some things to consider:
There is some evidence to indicate that Google Fonts load more quickly than Typekit fonts. (Both of which can be found in Squarespace's net font library).
Try to stay with only 1 internet font. Should you go too“font-crazy,” it is likely to slow your site down.
Have you got embedded videos in your Squarespace website? If this is the case, selecting the custom thumbnail option for video embeds can help improve speed.
There are two or three reasons for this: firstly, without the custom thumbnail, Squarespace might have to look up content and load it from whichever site the video is uploaded too (e.g. YouTube or even Vimeo). This happens even when the visitor does not click on the video and may lead to a lag if large files are being loaded.
Secondly, doing without a custom thumbnail leaves you open to third-party biscuits being run in your site - another speed bump.
ENABLE AJAX LOADING
If you're running Squarespace 7.0, specific templates permit you to enable Ajax loading (asynchronous Javascript and XML). This implies it may tell browsers to load your site one page at a time, speeding up the total load time for people.
Last thoughts
Squarespace recommends that where possible, limiting your pages to below 5mb in size. This should keep you near optimum performance speed-wise.
The hints listed above should continue to keep your pages below that 5mb threshold. We would also add that it is important to avoid too many embeds on a single page. These can otherwise invite third-party scripts to run and may inhibit your own speed.