With an increasing number of us using our smartphones for everything from online banking to video streaming, it's more important than ever for web designers to optimize site performance for a mobile platform. Whether you run a personal blog or a business website, you'll want to find ways to ensure that your site loads as quickly as possible on a mobile device, or you may lose your audience! So how can you boost that loading speed? Here are a few tips to try out.
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1. Resize your images.
Large photos are a key component of web design, but this can seriously hinder your website's download speed on a mobile device. High resolution images can waste bandwidth and slow down processing time, so it's worth trimming these down to boost the user experience. Try replacing images with smaller versions or using a lower resolution as the page loads, before replacing this with the high-res version after the user has engaged.
2. Get rid of unnecessary widgets.
Another common web design element that can have a drastic impact on loading time is widgets. Do you really need widgets for all of your social media profiles on the mobile website? If not, get rid of them and you may be surprised by the difference.
3. Get rid of redirects.
Not all users want to be redirected to the desktop website in the first place, and this action can end up taking up a lot of time as the data transfers from the mobile device to the desktop site and back again. Give users the option of accessing the desktop site, but otherwise it's better to deliver the mobile site directly to the initial request and doing away with the redirect.
4. Use touch events instead of click events.
When a mobile user accesses your website on a touchscreen device, the type of event you enable can impact loading times. Touch events are enabled immediately when the user touches the screen, but click events wait for as long as half a second to react. This can make your website seem slow and unwieldy.
5. Test your site's performance on a number of different devices.
Different mobile devices will behave in different ways, so when you're testing your site don't forget to use it on all these various platforms. Otherwise, you may end up with a website that loads perfectly on a Blackberry but stalls on an iPad. There are a number of performance testing tools to help you get started.
An increasing number of consumers are switching over to 4G networks, which drastically improves download speeds. Network bottlenecks must also be taken into consideration. Phones need time to receive and process the data, images and coding of your website, but network optimization with Nokia Networks and other providers helps with this. In the end, these tips will all help boost your site's download time no matter what type of network speed your audience is working with.
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