5 ways to reduce the amount of data transfer from your website
In today’s digital age, website owners are always looking for ways to improve their website’s performance, user experience, and search engine optimisation (SEO). One area that often gets overlooked is the amount of data transfer required to load a website. The more data that needs to be transferred, the slower the website loads, which can lead to frustrated users and lower search engine rankings. In this blog post, we’ll explore five simple ways to reduce the amount of data transfer required to load your website. If you’re looking for a more in-depth, technical look at how to optimise your website, take a look at The anatomy of a performant and sustainable webpage.
- Optimise or reduce imagery
Images are an essential part of most websites, but they can also be a significant contributor to the amount of data transfer required to load a page. Large images take longer to load, so it’s essential to optimise your images before uploading them to your website. There are several tools available online that can help you reduce the file size of your images without sacrificing quality. You can also consider using image formats like WebP or AVIF, which are optimised for the web and have smaller file sizes than other formats.
Another way to reduce the amount of data transfer required for images is to use lazy loading. Lazy loading delays the loading of images until they are needed, which can significantly reduce the initial load time of your website. You can also consider reducing the number of images on a page or using smaller thumbnails instead of full-size images.
- Don’t use autoplay videos
Videos are an excellent way to engage users on your website, but auto-playing videos can frustrate users and require a significant amount of data transfer. Autoplaying videos can also slow down the page load, as they require additional resources to load and play.
If you must use videos on your website, consider using a thumbnail image instead of auto-playing the video. This will allow users to choose whether or not they want to watch the video, reducing the amount of data transfer required to load your website.
- Reduce the number of third-party tracking scripts
Third-party tracking scripts are often used by website owners to track user behaviour and gather data for analytics. While these scripts can be useful, they can also slow down your website and require a significant amount of data transfer.
Firstly, question whether you are actually using the data being tracked. If not, simply remove the tracking script. If you do actively use the data being collected, try to reduce the amount of data transfer required for third-party tracking scripts by using fewer scripts or consolidating them into one script.
- Remove carousels
Carousels are a popular way to showcase multiple images or content tiles on a website, but they can also require additional data transfer. For example, image carousels require all of the images to be loaded, even if the user only sees one or two images. Also, consider whether the content is required at all. If it’s not important enough to display to users with them taking an action, is it really important at all?
To help reduce the amount of data transfer, consider using a single static image instead. You can also use lazy loading to load the images only when the user scrolls to them.
- Host fonts locally
Fonts are an important design element that can significantly impact the look and feel of a website. However, using external font services like Google Fonts can increase the amount of data transferred from your website. To reduce this, consider hosting fonts locally on your server.
By hosting fonts locally, you can reduce the number of requests made to external servers, which can help to improve load times and reduce data usage. Additionally, consider using newer font formats like WOFF2 which can offer better compression and faster loading times.
Conclusions
In conclusion, reducing the amount of data transfer required to load your website can significantly improve its performance, user experience, and search engine optimisation.
These five tips are really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to optimising your website to reduce data transfer.
Take a look at our in-depth deep dive, The anatomy of a performant and sustainable webpage, to understand how we put our principles into practice and deliver websites that achieve the highest level of performance and sustainability.
Get in touch or call us on (03) 4050 7773
