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  Avoid slow page load times

  16 Aug
  2013

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  • Author:   Jason Cross

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    Google is increasingly turning it's attention to mobile, and to mobile site design and performance. Most recently it has issued some feedback and 'advice' on page load times. 

    
    

    Currently, when we look at a lot of so-called "responsive" mobile sites we see common errors.

    
    

    Basically we're saying one thing to such clients and prospects - the architectural solution used in your current mobile site makes it very, very slow to load (as well as basic in layout and limited to working well on only a few, top-end, devices).

    Instead if you use server-side responsiveness, as well as the RCSS you have implemented, then you can get the page sizes for mobile down to one tenth of what your site currently delivers (and have a better looking GUI, delivering made-for-mobile functionality for your site visitors).

    Mobile users spend their lives on 3G (rarely!), Edge and GPRS: not Wi-fi and 4G

    We've all experienced the patchiness of mobile networks, even (especially) in high density areas or in cities and places where we expect network coverage to be 'best'. Mostly it isn't.

    The chart in the title image shows the problem for a given mobile site (it's fairly typical of the issue) and why site is (a) sluggish on a mobile device, and (b) only works on some devices:

    - the page sizes are huge (over 1MB.. when they should be under 100kb)

    - page load times go into minutes... even on 3G
    

    In terms of best practice approaches to mobilising your website:

    1. device side responsiveness [what typical 'responsive' sites do] is the basic, entry level solution i.e. cheap but lacking in UX/functionality/device support
    2. transcoding (no integration required) costs a little more but produces a far better result for the user (and hence conversion). And transcoding can be done with sophisticated GUI now, avoiding the look-alike cookie-cutter sites of a few years ago.
    3. made-for-mobile/mobile-first is the ultimate goal and produces the best solution for the user but costs more for you to develop

    And the way to achieve both 2. and 3. is to use RESS i.e. server-side responsiveness.

    Otherwise, people on a train, browsing your site following sight of an ad in a magazine, will find it takes 5 minutes to load!!!

    Categories:

    • |
    • Responsive Web Design
    • |
    • Mobile internet