The main device for accessing the internet has become the smartphone, replacing the desktop, laptop or tablet. According to ANCOM (National Authority for Administration and Regulation in Communications), in 2017, Romania had approximately 16.6 million mobile internet connections.
Internet consumption has increased significantly, increasing to 70%, the percentage being represented by people who access the internet with the help of a mobile device at least as often as through a computer (data taken from the Consumer Barometer, on trends in Romania in 2017).
Also from here we can see that Romania ranks first in the average loading speed of mobile sites: 8.1 seconds, on a par with Germany. However, Google’s recommended speed is 3 seconds, for a better consumer experience.
To check the loading speed of the site on mobiles, we recommend the TestMySite tool, offered free of charge by Google. It provides information such as:
- Website loading speed on 3G;
- Visitor churn rate due to loading time;
- Comparing the loading speed of the website on mobile with sites in the same industries;
- Tips to reduce charging speed;
- A report on the analysis carried out, which can be downloaded.
In order to reach a charging speed as fast as possible, it is necessary to follow some essential steps such as:
- Reduced server response time. It is responsible for loading the HTML code, and the recommended time for it is 200 ms;
- Integration of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology that allows the content of pages to be displayed instantly and considerably reduces the speed of loading the site on mobile.
- Enable cacheIts role is to eliminate the high loading time due to the database or various technical details;
- Image optimization. It is very important that all images are optimized because it helps reduce the loading speed. It is also recommended to resize them when necessary, because we will not always need a large image, as it would reduce the page load time. Once resized, it is advisable to allow the images to be served according to their size in relation to the terminal that makes the request to load the page. Respectively, on the mobile it is necessary to serve a resized photo, different from the one used for a desktop access.
- A clean code helps increase the loading speed. It is not recommended that a code be too loaded or contain multiple and unnecessary queries. Extra attention should be paid to the framework used so that it is optimized and there are no libs that are included but not used, as they influence the loading speed of the site.
- Optimization of CSS and JavaScript files. An important step is to delete the free spaces in the codes, followed by merging several CSS or JavaScript files into a single optimized file, so that the visitor’s experience is not affected.
- Removing unnecessary data from the database. Their removal can be done manually or by using different tools made available to customers by each platform.
- Reduction of the number of active modules (libaries). The more plugins are used, the more loaded a website will be, which is felt in its loading speed. That is why those plugins that are not used must be deactivated or even deleted.
An international study conducted by Akamai in 2017 shows that for every tenth of a second delayed in load time, the conversion rate decreases negatively by 7 percent. GpeC created an easy-to-follow visual report on the situation of online commerce on mobile devices in Romania in 2017.
