In real life, speed kills. But on the internet, death comes with slow speed. Nothing is more frustrating for internet users than a slow -loading website. In fact, modern internet users have no patience for slow websites. With never-before-seen internet speeds, high-performance mobile phones and user-end intermediaries such as responsive websites and AMP, slow-loading websites are almost certainly bound to lose out on website traffic. So much so, that E-commerce sites lose millions of dollars in revenue due to slow loading sites.

Over the years, Google has repeatedly said that speed is a factor in search result rankings. 40% of users abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load, and 79% said they would not return to a site with slow load-speed or poor performance.

There are no shortages of case studies and researches to show how a fast-loading site is beneficial not only from an SEO point of view but also for the brand image and longevity in general. If your website is suffering from slow loading speed and resultant visitor bounce, here are a few quick ideas to ramp up your site’s loading speed.

First and foremost, check your website’s loading speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Compare your site speed with the following benchmarks, so you know to what degree your site speed needs to improve:

Below 1 second = Perfect

1-3 seconds = Above Average

3-7 seconds = Average

7+ seconds = Very Poor

Then, start with a few tweaks to your website.

1 Optimize Images

A webpage loaded with high-quality, high-resolution images tends to load slowly, especially on desktop. To begin with, see if you can use a design theme where you can use minimal, but required images. Moreover, try to use lighter versions of the image to de-burden the page. One can use one of the many tools available online to resize and/or recompress images such as TinyPNG, Optimizilla,Compressor.io, and PNG Gauntlet.

2 Minimize HTTP Requests

80% of a website visitor’s time is spent waiting for the various components of a site such as images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc. to load. An HTTP request is made for each one of these components. Reducing the number of such components will also reduce the number of HTTP requests required to load the page. One way to address this issue is by checking how many HTTP requests your site is making. Google’s Developer Tools comes handy for this. The lesser the number of HTTP requests your site sends, the faster it will start to load.

3 Enable Browser Caching

Caching is the process of storing static files, such as images and videos, HTML documents, CSS and JavaScript files, for quick access. If your site is expected to have the same set of users return over and over again, caching can be very effective. When a returning user visits your website, the elements on your website are already found locally stored on their system, thus eliminating the need to reload all the components. Most content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc. have plugins to enable browser caching.

4 Use a CDN

CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of distributed servers that host web pages and content, that is delivered to a visitor based on their geographic location. So, if a user is visiting your website from Croatia, his system loads your website from Croatian server (or whichever is nearest). Since this is a distributed form of bandwidth, it does not burden a single central server, and also avoids traffic spikes. Some of the most popular CDNs are Cloudflare, Amazon Cloudfront, Google CDN, Cachefly, and Akamai.

5 Be Mobile Friendly

By the time 2019 ended, mobile visitors accounted for approximately 52.6% of global website traffic. India, especially, is a mobile-first country, and to be accessible to the traffic coming from mobile websites, your website has to be mobile-friendly. Create a responsive design for your website, so it loads easily on mobile devices. Although it requires some efforts, having an AMP (accelerated mobile page) proves immensely valuable as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and most other websites now have their inbuilt browsers that load AMP pages.

These are only some of the most common elements that affect website speed. Working on these will certainly help your website speed-up, but for a more wholesome web experience with aesthetic design and fast loading speeds, your website has to be designed and developed with a holistic approach. Because site speed is not just about search ranking, but also about customer satisfaction, revenue generation, and brand value.

For nearly half a decade, Telemerge IT Services has delivered value to customers through our unique web solutions. We work on web solutions by taking a meticulous approach, and help companies to scale-up their business by automating processes and redefining strategies. We do not compromise on style for substance, or vice-versa. Our team of expert designers and developers create a custom-made website that treads the fine line between looks, performance, and brand value.

Telemerge IT services ticks every box that makes for an ideal web development partner. We are not just your technological partner; we are your success partner.

To know more about our bespoke web design and development services, Get in touch with us.

The world is in the middle of a crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic is spreading rapidly and the authorities and common people are doing all they can to beat the threat of a wider spread. One of the measures many companies already have, and many more increasingly are, beginning to take is to let their employees work from home.

While working from home isn’t entirely a new phenomenon, it has never been done on this scale. Many organizations have practised the remote working arrangement and are starting to figure out how to work from home, at least for the next little while.

There is a silver lining to all this though. Modern web tools allow you to go about your workday from home pretty much the same way as you do in an office. Here’s a curated list of apps that will help you be more productive and efficient while working from home.

CALENDLY

Calendly is a freemium tool that eases the stress of arranging and scheduling meetings.

Calendly lets you set your meetings and open your preferred slots for the same. You can share the link for this meeting with others. Once a requestor sets a meeting with you, the tool sends a notification to your email and places the scheduled meeting on your calendar and the requestor’s calendar.

Account is simple to set up, easy to use and generally very effective. It lets you integrate Google Drive, Office 365 and Outlook calendars to sync your schedules. Additionally, it also supports meeting tools such as Google Meet, Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc. to automate your entire scheduling process.

P.S. Calendly is supporting free integrations with video meeting tools, Zoom and GoToMeeting, up until June to help make connecting during the COVID-19 quarantine easier.

ZOOM

Zoom is a cloud-based web-conferencing software that lets you host meetings, webinars, lectures, etc. It brings cloud conferencing, online meeting, file sharing, and chat communication under a single umbrella.

With its ability to host 100 interactive video participants and 10,000 view-only attendees, Zoom is extremely helpful for mid-size and enterprise-level organizations. The app’s audio and video quality is top-notch, and it even supports dual-screen sharing. Furthermore, their meeting tools include remote access, screen sharing, annotation tools and file sharing.

Zoom is a freemium tool with a free basic plan that allows unlimited 1-on-1 meetings. It also has Pro, Business and Enterprise plans which support more users and carry more meeting features.

SLACK

Slack is a cloud-based project collaboration and team chat tool that powers many big organizations such as IBM, Vodafone, Fox Sports, Trivago, Lyft and Shopify. The free version of the tool allows you to send 10,000 messages and allows unlimited one-on-one voice and video calls.

Slack enables team members to chat one-on-one as well as a group. The app has public channels which let members across organizations converse together, while private one-on-one chats allow colleagues to chat and collaborate among themselves. Both public channels and private chat streams are supported by voice and video calls and file sharing.

From Google Drive, Outlook, Trello, Salesforce to WeTransfer, Hyde, Github’s chatbot, Slack supports nearly 150 apps.

TRELLO

Working from home means being based in different locations. Certain things come with working in a traditional office space such as immediate feedback, instant collaboration and real-time tracking. Trello makes it all possible even if everyone is not together in a central location.

Trello lets users arrange and assign tasks, track project progress and collaborate with their colleagues on to-do lists. The app’s easy-to-use interface, simple navigation, and drag-and-drop features make it ideal to be used as a shared tool among all members of a team.

The free version of Trello lets users create as many personal boards, cards, and lists as they want. The Business and Enterprise plans come with higher upgrades for the same.

PERDOO

Perdoo is an OKR (Objectives and Key Results) goal management platform for companies. The online platform lets team leaders align their employees with collective team goals.

OKR is a goal management framework popularized by Google, that helps companies implement a strategy. Perdoo lets team leaders communicate this strategy to their teams in real-time as the project progresses and align or realign employee efforts accordingly. Resultantly, executive team members also have a better overview of the project’s progress and what is expected of them.

The platform has a free starter pack that allows team leaders to add unlimited team members and create unlimited goals. There is also a premium version that generates visual graphs and custom reports on the goals’ progress.

SHEWORK.IN

SheWork is a platform that lets you hire best-in-the-industry female talent to work remotely on your projects. The platform that was devised to let women, who have taken a break to focus on family and children, continue their career, but on their own terms. SheWork lets women follow flexible work schedules to work on projects they’ve been hired for.

The platform hosts over 2000 pre-vetted profiles which go through a technical assessment test and personal interview with the technical HR. Moreover, it comes packed with tools for project management, progress tracking, scheduling, and chatting and file-sharing, which make life easier for both the talent and the hirer.

SheWork’s flexible plans make it an ideal choice for organizations of all size. If you are a start-up you can choose their start-up or pay as you go plans, larger companies with more requirements can go for the long-term plan or permanent hiring. There is something for everyone.

These are tough times and tough times call for tough measures. You may have to physically distance yourself from your work, but virtually these apps will make sure your remote workday moves along as it would even otherwise.