What to aim for in load time?
- Thread starter thamonsta
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There isn't a straight answer. How many different elements are loading - text boxes, images, etc? How many queries are running?
> 3s is def not good, but as far as "OK good enough", you'll know because there is nothing left to optimise - it becomes a question of diminishing returns.
> 3s is def not good, but as far as "OK good enough", you'll know because there is nothing left to optimise - it becomes a question of diminishing returns.
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Page load time is always an ongoing battle. It's all dependent on what kind of HTML/CSS elements, javascript, images, php, etc...that you're using.
Google's Page Speed tool is a great way to drill down on whats causing the site to load slowly.
As far as optimal load times, the faster the better. At best, I've gotten sites down to 1s and that seems to be just fine for me.
Google's Page Speed tool is a great way to drill down on whats causing the site to load slowly.
As far as optimal load times, the faster the better. At best, I've gotten sites down to 1s and that seems to be just fine for me.
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This right here. As soon as the effort of making your site faster outweighs the benefits, it's fast enough.
turbin3
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Take it from me. There is absolutely a point of diminishing returns here. You can waste a whole lot of time trying to squeeze that last few percent of page speed out of a site, sometimes to not even see any meaningful results from it. Sometimes "good" is good enough.
That being said, consider this. A lot of people typically talk about page speed with one set of recommendations, generally, as if this applies to all sites. It's important to understand that, with mobile traffic, there are I believe 4 additional steps involved in loading a web page. So page load times are often multiplied significantly for mobile. The typical "3 seconds or less" simply might not cut it for some sites, if that 3 seconds on desktop equates to 10+ seconds on mobile.
I had a client recently who I had to do a good bit of convincing to help him understand the significance of this. He had 30-40% mobile traffic on average. His mobile bounce rate was 85-90% on average. Desktop page load times were ~2.5-3.0 seconds on average, which he felt was "good enough". Mobile page load times were 15-30+ seconds for most users, with a fairly significant percentage of users that had page load times of 60+ seconds. Obvious problem is obvious.
That being said, consider this. A lot of people typically talk about page speed with one set of recommendations, generally, as if this applies to all sites. It's important to understand that, with mobile traffic, there are I believe 4 additional steps involved in loading a web page. So page load times are often multiplied significantly for mobile. The typical "3 seconds or less" simply might not cut it for some sites, if that 3 seconds on desktop equates to 10+ seconds on mobile.
I had a client recently who I had to do a good bit of convincing to help him understand the significance of this. He had 30-40% mobile traffic on average. His mobile bounce rate was 85-90% on average. Desktop page load times were ~2.5-3.0 seconds on average, which he felt was "good enough". Mobile page load times were 15-30+ seconds for most users, with a fairly significant percentage of users that had page load times of 60+ seconds. Obvious problem is obvious.
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Thanks for the advice everyone!
I'm trying to get a handle on at what point I get into the diminishing returns. also learning that simply putting up maxcdn or cloudflare doesn't automatically mean a faster site lol
Would anyone scoff at a wordpress magazone that has about 1.5 second load time for the homepage and around 1 second for inner pages? Maybe I'll aim for that... I'm at about double that right now so I could make my site twice as fast if I hit those goals
I'm trying to get a handle on at what point I get into the diminishing returns. also learning that simply putting up maxcdn or cloudflare doesn't automatically mean a faster site lol
Would anyone scoff at a wordpress magazone that has about 1.5 second load time for the homepage and around 1 second for inner pages? Maybe I'll aim for that... I'm at about double that right now so I could make my site twice as fast if I hit those goals
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You'll see it when it happens - No matter what you do, other than upgrading the server etc, you'll reach a point where nothing will make a *real* difference.
Those are not bad targets, but the final speed will depend on your hosting and your content.
Those are not bad targets, but the final speed will depend on your hosting and your content.
turbin3
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@thamonsta, improving page load times by 50% is a pretty good goal to shoot for. Accomplishing that will probably not take a massive investment of time, and should get you a significant percentage of the way there. 1-1.5 seconds is not bad, generally speaking. It's been my experience that a fairly significant percentage of people don't focus hardly any efforts on improving page load times, so you'd already be ahead of the curve compared to most.
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I'm curious what you guys think the most bang for the buck is for speeding things up? (I assume you're talking about wordpress most of the time)
For instance, for new site builders most people here would say create a brand, get a custom theme from themeforest, and go to town. Point being, I've had great experiences with themeforest themes, and then I've also found myself in a pickle down the road because of some wacky theme code.
You've got caching options, smushing, css, images, cdn's, and probably other things beyond my experience level. As SOP, considering you might be working with a theme without optimal code, what is the hierarchy for your checklist?
For instance, for new site builders most people here would say create a brand, get a custom theme from themeforest, and go to town. Point being, I've had great experiences with themeforest themes, and then I've also found myself in a pickle down the road because of some wacky theme code.
You've got caching options, smushing, css, images, cdn's, and probably other things beyond my experience level. As SOP, considering you might be working with a theme without optimal code, what is the hierarchy for your checklist?
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Get a fast host and install the w3 total cache plugin. I'm assuming wp.
Make sure to edit the settings after you install it. If you do just those two things you'll be way ahead of the game.
Make sure to edit the settings after you install it. If you do just those two things you'll be way ahead of the game.