In this article, we'll go over how to optimize your pages for better performance and SEO
Performance and SEO are vital to a successful website. Good SEO practices will make your website rank higher in search results, and good optimization practices will ensure accessibility for all users.
This article will go over the basics of SEO and performance optimization. We recommend running a quick audit on your site to glimpse its current state.
Performance Optimization
Here are a couple of tasks we can easily check off the list to improve performance:
- Reduce Image Size: Images are valuable assets, but they are often poorly optimized. Compress your images and try to keep their size below 200kb. Avoid using images with a larger resolution than their actual rendering resolution.
- Use Next-get Format Images (.webp): The web standard .webp format will help achieve smaller sizes with unnoticeable visual changes. There are multiple conversion tools online, such as convertio and cloudconvert.
- Lazy load content: Most modules allow you to lazy load images. Lazy loading defines an asset as non-critical for an initial rendering, which postpones its load to lighten the initial site’s requests.
- Replace .gif with Video: Heavy assets such as .gif have a negative impact on performance. A video player on loop, muted, and with hidden controls brings the same value to your content with a reduced performance impact.
SEO Optimization
Here are a couple of tasks we can easily check off the list to improve your SEO rankings:
- Have a Single H1 Tag: All pages require no less and no more than one H1 (Heading 1).
- Use H2 to Define Sections: Using H2 (Heading 2) tags to define your sections helps browsers understand the contents of your page, which results in better indexing.
- Add a Meta Description: Meta descriptions are configured in your page editor’s Settings tab. They are used to provide a short description of your page.
- Add a Featured Image: Featured images are configured in your page editor’s Settings tab. They bring relevant visual information to search results, which is especially useful for Blog Posts.
- Add Alt Tags to All Images: Alt tags serve as a description of the image’s content that users can see when an image fails to load. They also enhance your page’s accessibility by providing context to text-to-speech users.
- Have a High Text-HTML ratio: A page needs enough text to justify its structure. Pages with a low word count are unlikely to provide useful content to their users.
