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The Loading Speed of a Page Is of Great Importance

Have you at one time closed a web site mainly because it was too sluggish? Whether or not this has actually happened to you previously, take comfort in the fact that you probably would’nt be the only one. The majority of online surfers have stated that they have previously come across a web site that was loading too slowly! The majority of the time, these types of website visitors will continue to be speechless.

They will certainly not have made it to your content material, and therefore will not message you and alert you that your web site is too sluggish for them. That is the reason why it happens to be helpful to get a measurement on your own of the performance of downloading web pages. Don’t do it with a stop watch!

Rather, do it with world wide web software tools purposely designed to achieve that! Tools like LoadView are quite useful for load testing, while tools like Pingdom are useful for speed testing. Dare I say I have a small number of favorite pieces of software that I utilize, needless to say. And as a consequence I will begin by presenting you some more info about them. These tools will help you measure the speed of your site.

Many tools are available to measure the speed of loading web pages. The speed of displaying pages of a website has become an important element. Currently the loading speed of a page is of great importance for both users and search engine rankings. Therefore, tools that allows you to measure the speed of a website are rather useful. You may ask yourself, "Is it always necessary to try to improve the speed with which a site loads?"

The answer is yes! The faster your site is loaded on the computer or phone the more visitors you will get. Thus, the performance and ability of your site to load quickly is essential for its usability and, ultimately, its success. Therefore, utilize web performance tools to check on your site. They will allow you to properly measure the impact of various parts of your site on the speed of the site.

Time to First Byte (TTFB)

The time to first byte (TTFB), the phrase says a lot about the loading time of a web page. In this regard, the hosting solutions are far from being all on the same level, and if all the hosts are not equal, the structure of your site and its CMS can more or less agree with the architectures of certain hosts. A TTFB is the time that Google and other search engines analyze to deliver content quickly accessible.

One understands therefore that TTFB is question of speed of execution of the requests by the servers of a website. It will be translated by the speed of access to the server, or literally: "loading time of the first byte". The TTFB is an integral part of the loading time of each web page. Therefore, you need to do as much to improve it as you can. A related concept is "ping."

Originally "ping" comes from the sound of echoing a sonar. A "ping" is the time between two "ping" indicating the distance traveled by the signal to detect the seabed and return to a ship. This time varies according to several criteria. One of these criteria is the quality of the web server, according to Webhostingbuddy.com. They state that the better quality hosting you have, and the better it is managed, the better off you'll be when it comes to low ping times.

For online ping the distance between the server and the client and generally a problem easy to correct. For the rest of the problems, the quality of the connection is important, as the questions of direct connection (wired network) or Indirect (3G, WI-FI, etc.) are factors modifying the ping. In computing, ping is by definition the time required for the signal to make a round trip between a client and the server.

The shortened sounds were not good signals for a captain. However, in web performance it is the reverse, the lower the ping, the better for the webmaster. This is evident when using tools like Webpagetest.org, and other web-based testing tools. Ping is equivalent to TTFB when connected to a web page, it is literally the time to download the first byte. Remember, if you are addressing and targeting Asian internet users, for example, avoid hosting your website in the US. Even if the price you get is very beneficial, the ping will be greatly extended.

Does Your Boss Require a Deadline for Your Load Testing?

This happens a number of times, especially with the busier offices. Everyone is excited to see what you have come up with. Your boss is on your case about getting it done for everyone to see. In your mind, though, something is not ready yet. Your boss thinks otherwise.

We have some tips to help you alleviate your stress and get it all done in time.

Try using the Load Impact User Scenario Recorder. This is an extension tool put out by Chrome. There is a step-by-step guide online to help you learn how to use it. Click here. It will allow you to still create user scenarios, all while pleasing everyone else at the same time. This way you can still make sure the elements being load tested are perfected and please your boss at the same time.

Try to do this in a Continuous Integration Environment. You will be using the Load Impact API. This will also help you defeat the deadlines, while still making sure everything is running in concert with one another. Those who are not familiar with this can click here for more information.

Important Tips to Remember about Load Testing During a Limited Time Frame

Run the tests multiple times. You may be strapped for time, but you cannot rely on one test. You need to do more than one. Three or four tests are the standard amount.

It does not matter how much grief your boss gives you, you need to have the results analyzed. Putting out results that are inaccurate are going to cause you more grief.

Make the necessary adjustments and run the tests over and over. This is why the two options listed above are helpful. It lets you do what you need to do, all while keeping your boss off your back.

The Importance of Monitoring the Loading Time

You may wonder, "Why is it vital to monitor the speed when loading my e-commerce site?" Do you have an idea of how much time your visitors spend waiting for your pages to load? If you have not yet asked yourself this question, you should.

Think about the delay with loading your site as a "time-out," during which the visitor has nothing else to do but wait ... or leave. According to recent statistics, based on the responses of e-merchants, a visitor spends an average of a few minutes on an e-commerce site. Therefore any delay represents a non-negligible part of the functioning of your site.

These delays will have an inevitable impact on statistics as strategic as your bounce rate or your conversion rate. This was confirmed by merchants who have increased their conversion rate by as much as 20% just by accelerating the loading of their web pages by a few hundred milliseconds! And again, this is only a partial insight into the impact of web site speed on your business.

You may say “I understood the importance of monitoring the loading time of my web pages...but what should I measure?” Monitoring - and ultimately optimizing - the loading time of your pages will also allow you to boost your SEO. It will also allow you to gain market share by improving your performance compared to your competitors, and so on.

The answer is more complex than it might seem. There is a delay between the call of your page by the user's browser and its full display. This delay is broken down into many steps. In addition, the term "loading time"remains to be specified. That is because it can take on very different meanings according to the interlocutors and the tools.

Many indicators can hide behind the notion of load time. There is the server response time, visually complete time, the time to start rendering, time to first byte, and so on. Even if each of these indicators is interesting to study, we advise you to focus on three of them to start. These three are the Start Render, the TTFB, and finally the Speed Index.

sharon@sharonrosenzweig.net