In the travel industry, it’s all about showing, not telling. So it makes sense to use a lot of imagery in your brochures and even on your website.
While this may help attract prospects to your agency, it may bog down your site. And if there’s anything we know about today’s consumers it’s that they hate slow websites.
So if your site takes longer than a few seconds to download, then you’re losing prospects at the gate. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have any images on your website. There is a proper way to go about it using professional SEO tactics.
In this quick guide, we’ll cover four ways you can give your travel website a speed boost.
Professional SEO Tips
1. Throw Out Unnecessary Add-Ons And Plugins
If you’re using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, then you likely have a number of plugins and add-ons you’re using. While these can come in handy, they may do more harm than good for your site.
For instance, the ones that professional SEO experts use to enhance your optimization. Some work fluidly, while others are more blocky.
So it’s not about the how many plugins you have, but the quality and size. You can actually have a fully functional website using 50 plugins. While another site with only 10 plugins can act glitchy and slow.
Try to avoid plugins that load lots of styles and scripts and that make a lot of remote requests.
2. You Don’t Need Every Single Social Sharing Button
When you first start out, you’re tempted to go all out with your marketing. This includes using social media share buttons. You can place these throughout your website so users can share product pages, blog posts and other content on your site.
So the idea here is to create buttons for only the platforms your particular audience uses.
3. Cut Back On Imagery
Let’s face it, you can’t have a travel website that lacks in visual content. However, how you add them to the site is key. For instance, you can combine photos with CSS sprites.
What this will do is cut down how many images load per page. CSS sprites are one big photo made up of a host of other smaller images.
So if you combine five images together into one CSS sprite, the site will load one graphic instead of all five.
One site that does a nice mix of imagery is Viajacompara.
4. Find A Better Web Host
When you’ve done all you can to speed up your website, but nothing helps, you should consider getting a better web host.
After all, this is can make or break the reliability and speed of your site. So it’s best to go with a web host with speeds between 300ms and 500ms.
A quick internet search can reveal a lot about the web hosts you’re considering. So do your due diligence before you commit.
Get A Better Host To Enhance Your Professional SEO
Now, it’s important to note that the slower your website is, the worse its rank on Google and other search engines. So if you want to ensure your travel website competes well, then all of this is key.
The above tips can help you reduce page load download times. Plus, it can give your SEO a boost. At SiteUptime, we offer quality website hosting and reports showing the speed and availability of your site.
You’re alerted when your website has a failure to download. Stop by SiteUptime today to learn more!
