If you have done some research into SEO practices, you will know that site speed is pretty significant.
Website or site rate 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 because the fact is, people do not need to hang around for slow-loading sites.
The solution is, not complete control, but you still have choices to maximize website speed.
Here's what you can do:
Get our record version here: What to do to Accelerate your Squarespace website
SEO is important concerning your website getting found in search results, however, that is only one motive to prioritize site rank. Think about what you do when you land on a website which takes too long to load. Do you hang around and waitfor? Or do you give up quickly?
Most people won't hang around. This study shows they will depart the site if it doesn't load within three seconds. This looks like a short time, but with improvements in online speeds through time, we've been prepared to expect that things must work fast. If not, there's guaranteed to be a rival website to check out instead.
So while SEO is an issue, there's another thing that should be a bigger concern: consumer experience. Improving site speed provides a much better user experience and ensures that your site visitors are more likely to stick around a little longer.
Evaluation your website first
How will you know if your website takes less than three seconds to load, or if any modifications you've made any difference to speed? You may test your site speed first.
There are a couple different tools available to assist and many will also generate a report highlighting problem areas. This is helpful so you are not left to guess.
Squarespace recommends that you either use their built in tools, or even a tool like Pingdom to ensure you're receiving accurate results. If you're using the google speed page Chrome browser, you can follow those steps:
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 developers who code their sites from scratch and can return false negatives for Squarespace sites that are constructed on a custom CMS. That means in the event that you use it and register an error, that does not necessarily imply there is anything wrong with webpage rank on your website.
Methods to accelerate 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 basic that we would anticipate most designers to know, yet large image files are still frequently the culprit behind slow-loading pages. We know - you're attempting to strike the right balance with image quality and retain that sharp look onscreen, but you do not need print quality pictures to attain this.
Some key items to remember are:
Use JPG over PNG many of this time (some vector images do not look so good in JPG).
Keep the picture width low. Squarespace advises that you don't go past 1500 - 2000 pixels in width, although in some cases, you could have the ability to make them even smaller.
The Getty stock pictures or free Unsplash pictures you can download and add directly through Squarespace are often large. To make them you can download them in the webpage you have put them and use an image resizing tool to decrease file size.
There are numerous free image resizing tools. For instance: PicResize, ResizeImage and Tiny PNG.
A sort of"quick win" with Squarespace site speed is to make sure that you're using the SSL option. Why? Because your website is going to be delivered via the faster HTTP/2 protocol.
You can also look at switching on the HSTS alternative, which has been proven to improve security and SEO. These two are found under Settings > Advanced > SEO and some other changes may take up to 72 hours to become active.
CONSIDER AMP FOR BLOG POSTS
Switching on AMP (Accelerated Mobile Web Pages) can significantly improve page rank for blog posts, especially on mobile devices. It is pretty important to keep in mind mobile when you're looking at page speed because a lot of browsing action happens on mobile devices.
When AMP is switched on it will deliver quite fast-loading site pages to mobile users, as long as people have been obtained through a Google search.
AMP operates by stripping out"non-essential" coding from a page and using clever caching to load webpages immediately. It's well worth reading up on it as it simplifies quite a few standard Squarespace cubes, such as type cubes and code blocks. Check out the information on AMP and check it out before choosing to run with it.
There are all sorts of third-party scripts you might be working on a Squarespace site, including those associated with plugins you decide to add. As a general rule, only add those that are absolutely vital to accomplish the functionality you need on your website - extras may slow you down.
If you've had your website going for a while and you're not certain what impact third-party scripts are getting on web site speed, it's well worth doing an audit. The site speed tools we discussed previously can inform you that are slowing your website down.
The other thing we would suggest is being quite selective in the first area about which third party plugins you let. A general rule would be to go for reliable, well-reviewed tools that have a clear history of regular upgrades by the proprietor. Plugins that aren't kept updated can drag a site down.
We all know. Some fonts are so trendy, you need to have them on your own site. Web fonts can really produce the look of a site, but the problem is they can also drag load speed.
There are a set of typefaces which are considered "web safe" with nominal effect on website speed, but naturally these are your boring ones, like Times New Roman or Arial. The majority of people do opt to utilize some type of web fonts to spice up the look of the page.
Here are some things to consider:
There's some evidence to suggest that Google Fonts load more quickly than Typekit fonts. (The two of which are available in Squarespace's net font library).
Try to stay with only 1 internet font. If you go too"font-crazy," it is going to slow your website down.
Have you got embedded videos on your own Squarespace site? If so, selecting the custom thumbnail alternative for video embeds can help to improve speed.
There are two or three reasons for this: firstly, with no custom thumbnail, Squarespace will have to look up content and load it from any website that the video is uploaded too (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo). This occurs even if the visitor does not click on the video and could cause a lag if large files are being loaded.
Second, 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 means it can tell browsers to load your site one page at a time, speeding the total load time for people.
Last thoughts
Squarespace recommends that wherever possible, restricting your pages to under 5mb in size. This should keep you near optimum performance speed-wise.
The hints listed above should keep your pages below that 5mb threshold. We would also add that it is important to prevent a lot of embeds on a single page. These can otherwise invite third-party scripts to operate and can inhibit your own speed.
HOW TO OPTIMIZE A SQUARESPACE WEBSITE FOR SITE SPEED
por Rosalinda Herington (2021-06-01)
If you have done some research into SEO practices, you will know that site speed is pretty significant.Website or site rate 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 because the fact is, people do not need to hang around for slow-loading sites.
The solution is, not complete control, but you still have choices to maximize website speed.
Here's what you can do:
Get our record version here: What to do to Accelerate your Squarespace website
SEO is important concerning your website getting found in search results, however, that is only one motive to prioritize site rank. Think about what you do when you land on a website which takes too long to load. Do you hang around and waitfor? Or do you give up quickly?
Most people won't hang around. This study shows they will depart the site if it doesn't load within three seconds. This looks like a short time, but with improvements in online speeds through time, we've been prepared to expect that things must work fast. If not, there's guaranteed to be a rival website to check out instead.
So while SEO is an issue, there's another thing that should be a bigger concern: consumer experience. Improving site speed provides a much better user experience and ensures that your site visitors are more likely to stick around a little longer.
Evaluation your website first
How will you know if your website takes less than three seconds to load, or if any modifications you've made any difference to speed? You may test your site speed first.
There are a couple different tools available to assist and many will also generate a report highlighting problem areas. This is helpful so you are not left to guess.
Squarespace recommends that you either use their built in tools, or even a tool like Pingdom to ensure you're receiving accurate results. If you're using the google speed page Chrome browser, you can follow those steps:
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 developers who code their sites from scratch and can return false negatives for Squarespace sites that are constructed on a custom CMS. That means in the event that you use it and register an error, that does not necessarily imply there is anything wrong with webpage rank on your website.
Methods to accelerate 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 basic that we would anticipate most designers to know, yet large image files are still frequently the culprit behind slow-loading pages. We know - you're attempting to strike the right balance with image quality and retain that sharp look onscreen, but you do not need print quality pictures to attain this.
Some key items to remember are:
Use JPG over PNG many of this time (some vector images do not look so good in JPG).
Keep the picture width low. Squarespace advises that you don't go past 1500 - 2000 pixels in width, although in some cases, you could have the ability to make them even smaller.
The Getty stock pictures or free Unsplash pictures you can download and add directly through Squarespace are often large. To make them you can download them in the webpage you have put them and use an image resizing tool to decrease file size.
There are numerous free image resizing tools. For instance: PicResize, ResizeImage and Tiny PNG.
A sort of"quick win" with Squarespace site speed is to make sure that you're using the SSL option. Why? Because your website is going to be delivered via the faster HTTP/2 protocol.
You can also look at switching on the HSTS alternative, which has been proven to improve security and SEO. These two are found under Settings > Advanced > SEO and some other changes may take up to 72 hours to become active.
CONSIDER AMP FOR BLOG POSTS
Switching on AMP (Accelerated Mobile Web Pages) can significantly improve page rank for blog posts, especially on mobile devices. It is pretty important to keep in mind mobile when you're looking at page speed because a lot of browsing action happens on mobile devices.
When AMP is switched on it will deliver quite fast-loading site pages to mobile users, as long as people have been obtained through a Google search.
AMP operates by stripping out"non-essential" coding from a page and using clever caching to load webpages immediately. It's well worth reading up on it as it simplifies quite a few standard Squarespace cubes, such as type cubes and code blocks. Check out the information on AMP and check it out before choosing to run with it.
There are all sorts of third-party scripts you might be working on a Squarespace site, including those associated with plugins you decide to add. As a general rule, only add those that are absolutely vital to accomplish the functionality you need on your website - extras may slow you down.
If you've had your website going for a while and you're not certain what impact third-party scripts are getting on web site speed, it's well worth doing an audit. The site speed tools we discussed previously can inform you that are slowing your website down.
The other thing we would suggest is being quite selective in the first area about which third party plugins you let. A general rule would be to go for reliable, well-reviewed tools that have a clear history of regular upgrades by the proprietor. Plugins that aren't kept updated can drag a site down.
We all know. Some fonts are so trendy, you need to have them on your own site. Web fonts can really produce the look of a site, but the problem is they can also drag load speed.
There are a set of typefaces which are considered "web safe" with nominal effect on website speed, but naturally these are your boring ones, like Times New Roman or Arial. The majority of people do opt to utilize some type of web fonts to spice up the look of the page.
Here are some things to consider:
There's some evidence to suggest that Google Fonts load more quickly than Typekit fonts. (The two of which are available in Squarespace's net font library).
Try to stay with only 1 internet font. If you go too"font-crazy," it is going to slow your website down.
Have you got embedded videos on your own Squarespace site? If so, selecting the custom thumbnail alternative for video embeds can help to improve speed.
There are two or three reasons for this: firstly, with no custom thumbnail, Squarespace will have to look up content and load it from any website that the video is uploaded too (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo). This occurs even if the visitor does not click on the video and could cause a lag if large files are being loaded.
Second, 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 means it can tell browsers to load your site one page at a time, speeding the total load time for people.
Last thoughts
Squarespace recommends that wherever possible, restricting your pages to under 5mb in size. This should keep you near optimum performance speed-wise.
The hints listed above should keep your pages below that 5mb threshold. We would also add that it is important to prevent a lot of embeds on a single page. These can otherwise invite third-party scripts to operate and can inhibit your own speed.