Kavya Khashnobish

In the digital age, patience is no longer a virtue. People have everything they want at their fingertips, and they want to use their time as efficiently as possible. That’s why even a delay of a couple of seconds on your web page could significantly impact the number of page views and the customers you gather.

That’s why we’ve made a list of the best hacks to speed things up on your web page:

 

1. Enhance your CSS

The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the first thing that needs to load for people to see your website. By keeping your CSS short, you give your customers quicker access to your site.  Any amount of unnecessary data can cause your loading speed to slow down.

So carefully edit your CSS and optimize it.

First, check if your Content Management System (CMS) already optimizes your CSS. If not, you could always use an external source such as CSS Minifier to minimize your resource files — making a world of difference to your website loading time.

 

2. Use third-party hosting services

Having large files, such as videos, on your web page takes up a lot of space, which can impact how fast your website loads.  What’s more, if you use a shared server, hosting videos on your page can quickly make you exceed the space you are allotted. And even if you use a server to upload large files, when many users try to access them at once, it could result in pauses and lags in playback.

One easy hack to work your way around this is by sharing videos through external hosting platforms, such as Vimeo and YouTube. You can then easily embed the video on your site and drastically improve your website loading time.

 

3. Reduce image sizes

Apart from videos, images are the second largest type of files most websites use — and they can take a real toll on the loading time. But having several images on your web page is just the thing you need to make it interesting and pull up conversion rates, so reducing the number of images is never an option.

The next best thing? Try scaling your images to the size you want. This doesn’t mean just cropping them — since that would still involve your website loading the entire image and then displaying it in a small size.

Instead, resize and compress the pictures to reduce the size and make your website load faster.

 

4. Compress content

Compression can drastically reduce the loading speed of your website, bringing down its size and all the files on it. Most often, compression is a server setting, but if it isn’t an option, you can always use file formats and applications like Gzip, which identify strings of similar code in your text files and temporarily replaces them to make your page load faster. Using such applications has become a standard practice for most websites these days.

 

5. Enable browser caching

When a user first visits your web page, the main components of the page are saved on their hard drive or temporary storage.

By doing this, their browser can easily access it without having to send another HTTP request to the server each time they visit your site. This reduces the time it takes for your website to load.

Platforms like WordPress offer plugins such as W3 Total Cache to make the process easier. You can also use other services such as Apache Caching, IIS Caching and Nginx Caching to enable browser caching on your website.

Providing customers with a rich online experience (where large-sized web pages are a given) with near-instantaneous loading times can be a tough challenge for marketers. But with these hacks, you can keep your websites running at optimal speed, without having to compromise on the quality of your content.

With over 25-million active business profiles, Instagram has cemented its position as the preferred platform for digital marketing. This social network has grown exponentially in the recent past and currently has more than 300-million active daily users. But the audience on Instagram can be fickle, and they’re incredibly sensitive to changes in online trends. This then poses a unique challenge — in a sea of competitors eager to grab attention, how can you make your business swim instead of sink?

Here’s our list of the best practices on Instagram to make sure your business isn’t just another drop in the ocean:

Know your consumer inside-out through Instagram Polls

Present-day consumers aren’t satisfied with being silent spectators in the retail process. They prefer to participate in deciding what and how companies sell to them. Instagram’s freshest features — Instagram Polls and Emoji Sliders — allow your business to empower consumers to be a part of the process. Want to interact with your audience and know more about their demands? These tools are your quickest ticket to solid market insights.

Maximize the potential of Instagram Stories

Instagram’s ‘Story’ feature is a boon for businesses looking to leverage the platform and further their brand. For starters, get creative with your use of Instagram Stories. Host ‘Instagram Takeovers’ through celebrities and influencers to add a more human touch to your Instagram profile. Or just use the 24-hour time window to incentivize loyal followers with exclusive discounts and offers. You can even use the feature to share links through your story with the ‘Swipe Up’ option — thereby increasing the likelihood of a purchase. It’s also ideal to give sneak-peaks of upcoming product launches to pique the curiosity of your target group. Simply put, the possibilities are endless with this feature.

Provide demonstrations through Instagram Live

One of the biggest concerns consumers have when it comes to online purchases is whether or not the product will be as great as it looks on the screen. This is where Instagram can help reassure them by posting demo videos through its Live feature. As the name suggests, this feature allows you to post live videos and allows you to access a stream of viewer comments in real-time — helping you address their concerns immediately.

Strategize the use of hashtags

Even though hashtags have been a core component of social media marketing, the latest update of this humble feature takes it up a notch — Instagram now allows users to follow hashtags. Although you cannot view how many people follow a particular hashtag, it does show you some handy data such as the number of posts under each tag, as well as the demographic engaging with it.

Build a community — crowdsourced content

Continuously generating interesting content for your Instagram feed can be quite a task. Crowdsourcing is a simple solution to this problem that packs a punch. In a nutshell, you can source creative User Generated Content (UGC) from diverse online communities. This helps your business in two ways: it infuses your feed with incredible images, while also acting as a way of increasing brand awareness among Instagram users. But most of all, it builds brand affinity. Users would be thrilled at having their content tagged as the brand’s, thereby generating a community of loyal followers to surround your brand.

Prioritize experiences over products

In today’s world, where buying things is easier than ever, there has been a fundamental shift in consumer mindset — experiences now trump products and services. If you feel the need to give your business an experiential makeover, Instagram is the place to be! Its various features — be it photos, videos, or stories — allow you to successfully build a context around your brand. Use these to shift the focus from functional aspects of your product to the potential experiences your product could enable for an effective marketing strategy.

In the competitive world of digital marketing, it’s always wise to have a few cards up your sleeve. Though these best practices aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution to your Instagram marketing problems, they definitely cannot be ignored in making a powerful Instagram marketing strategy to make those followers pour in.