Dive is a fun space for remote teams where team members can socialize. You can see who’s online, call a group, play games, watch movies together, or bond on common interest areas. You can talk, screen share, and do video chat with a click.
We are growing rapidly and are looking for a SDET to join our early stage engineering team. We are seeking someone who has experience building automation test frameworks and executing extensive test strategies across both Frontend and Backend components of web applications. You’ll be responsible for placing guardrails for the dev team to build quality software products and to makesure the platform is reliable, scalable and of high-quality for thousands of people using dive during their everyday lives.
We’re a relatively small team of about 4 people – meaning your work will have a lot of impact. We truly encourage being yourself at work and it shows in the creative code we write 🙂
Our Customers love us. Our users are from 32+ countries and teams from Facebook, Google, Gitlab, Uber, Airtable etc. who absolutely love using Dive.
If you are interested in joining our small and passionate team drop me an e-mail to om[at]letsdive[dot]io – come chat about what we’re doing, or if you have questions!
At Paper.li, we highly value the power of content in all forms and the importance of building an outstanding personal brand. That’s why we launched The Personal Branding Playbook, where we share a proven method …
As one of the largest e-commerce platforms on the internet, Shopify offers budding (and established) entrepreneurs a platform to sell their wares and increase their reach. In fact, Shopify dominates nearly 20 percent of the e-commerce market share. That’s not all. With millions of active buyers on the platform, there is plenty of opportunity for …
At Paper.li, we highly value the power of content in all forms and the importance of building an outstanding personal brand. That’s why we launched The Personal Branding Playbook, where we share a proven method … The post Grow Your Brand: Here’s How to Distribute and Share Your Content appeared first on Paper.li blog.
When you browse the internet, do you ever stop to wonder what’s happening in the background? If the answer’s no, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Most marketers, even great ones, don’t give the “tech stuff” much thought. How a website performs is just something for IT specialists to worry about, right?
No, unfortunately.
If your website’s slow or clunky, it directly affects the user experience. In fact, 40 percent of people won’t hang around if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load. With this in mind, it’s crucial you know how to fix a sluggish website and streamline your page loading times before you lose leads.
Where do you start? Well, one way is to make fewer HTTP requests for your website.
Although an HTTP request sounds like a really technical term best reserved for engineers and IT pros, don’t panic. It’s something any good marketer can understand. Now, let’s take a deep dive into how these requests work and how you can use this knowledge to boost your website’s performance.
What Are HTTP Requests?
Before we get started, it’s crucial you’re clear on what HTTP requests actually are.
HTTP stands for “HyperText Transfer Protocol.” Think of HTTP as the language browsers and web servers use to talk to each other. We (thankfully) don’t need to cover all the intricacies of web code to understand how HTTP affects load time, but here’s a breakdown of the key steps marketers need to know.
When someone wants to visit your website, their browser sends a “request” to your server. This is known as an HTTP request. Your server acknowledges the response and kicks into gear, ready to display the webpage.
Here’s where it gets a little tricky, though. The browser can’t display the page right away. It needs copies of the various different files, such as plug-ins and images, to load the page properly.
How does the browser get these files? By making multiple HTTP requests. If the browser doesn’t make these requests, the page components won’t load.
Depending on how many components your page has, these requests can really add up, which is a problem. Here’s why.
Why You Need Fewer HTTP Requests
There are two simple reasons why every website should aim to reduce the HTTP requests associated with it.
Firstly, let’s start with page load time. The more HTTP requests your site receives, the longer it takes for the requested page to load. For example, a page with 20 HTTP requests will load faster than a page with 70 requests.
The issue? People don’t want to hang around waiting on a website loading.
39 percent of visitors won’t return if your images or videos don’t load properly, as research by SAG IPL shows.
45 percent of respondents won’t buy from a retailer if the website takes too long to load, according to research by Unbounce.
In short, with much competition out there, you’ll lose leads if your website takes too long to load or it doesn’t load properly at all.
Next, let’s think about what impact these lost leads have on your metrics.
According to Google, bounce rate increases by 32 percent when loading time slows from 1-3 seconds, and to make matters worse, poor loading time affects your SEO ranking. Delays in page loading time can cut page views by 11 percent, which tells Google your page isn’t offering value.
Think about it this way: If your website doesn’t impress visitors, they won’t shop with you. They won’t recommend you to their friends. In time, this leads to a lower search ranking, less visitors, and reduced conversion rates overall.
What can we take from all this? Well, too many HTTP requests directly affect your key metrics and your marketability online.
How to Identify Unnecessary HTTP Requests
OK, we’re clear on how HTTP requests work and why you need less of them. How do you identify these excess requests, though? By doing two things: identifying how many requests you’re dealing with, and grading your website performance.
Establish the Number of HTTP Requests Your Website Receives
You can’t eliminate HTTP requests until you know how many your website receives. Luckily, there are tools available to help you identify the number.
For example, HubSpot’s Website Grader give you a free website “health check” so you can instantly see how many requests you’re receiving:
If you use Chrome, you can also use Chrome’s DevTools to identify the number of HTTP requests. Simply right-click the page you want to check, click “Inspect,” then click the “Network” option. The image you’ll see looks something like this:
This page receives 112 requests.
Grade Your Website Performance
When was the last time you assessed your website’s performance and, most importantly, page loading time? If you can’t remember, now’s a great time to run an audit.
You can try Ubersuggest for this. It’s really simple to use. Simply open Ubersuggest, type in your URL, and click “Site Audit” from the sidebar when the search results finish loading.
Once you’ve clicked “Site Audit,” you’ll see an overview of your website’s speed. It’ll look something like this:
A low score indicates you’re suffering from poor loading times. For example, if your mobile website takes 6 seconds to load, but your desktop site loads in 2 seconds, there’s a problem with your mobile site, and so on.
Don’t worry if you’re unhappy with your page loading times or the number of HTTP requests you’re seeing. Now you know there’s a problem, you can begin streamlining those HTTP requests and ensure your page loads as quickly as possible. Let’s look at how to do just that.
8 Steps to Make Fewer HTTP Requests
Although every website is unique, we can usually blame excessive HTTP requests on a few common problems. With this in mind, here are eight simple steps you can take right now to reduce the number of requests passing through your website.
1. Remove Unnecessary Plug-Ins
Plug-ins are great. They add new functionality to your website and make your web pages more engaging. However, too many plug-ins clutter your page and hold up loading times. While there’s no “right” number of plug-ins, a good rule of thumb is to keep them minimal.
First, identify which plug-ins you use. Do they add value to your website? If the answer’s no, they can go. If it’s a plug-in you only use now and then, you can always reinstall it when it’s required then delete it again.
Not sure how to identify your plug-ins? Reach out to me and see how I can help you better understand your website’s performance.
2. Replace Heavy Plug-Ins With Streamlined Ones
OK, so you can’t remove every plug-in. However, if you want to make fewer HTTP requests, you can often replace resource-heavy plug-ins with more streamlined options.
For example, maybe you want to add social media buttons to your page. Great. Social media shares can increase engagement and boost your exposure. However, the plug-ins can be resource-intensive.
To streamline your social media plug-ins, use tools like Novashare. This tool won’t slow your page down, but it will help you reduce the HTTP requests generated by your social sharing plug-ins:
3. Remove Images You Do Not Need
Sure, images can improve your website’s visual appeal and boost the user experience. Unless the image helps your reader understand your content in some way, or it’s a highly useful piece of content in its own right like an infographic, it might be worth deleting it.
Remember, every image creates an HTTP request. While those fun GIFs might have visual appeal, they won’t impress your audience if they affect load time.
Audit every individual web page and don’t be afraid to get a little ruthless. If the image doesn’t add value to your content, delete it.
4. Reduce the File Size for Remaining Images
Once you’ve deleted the unnecessary images, you need to optimize the ones you plan on keeping. In this context, “optimizing” doesn’t mean using alt text or keywords, although you should optimize for SEO, too.
Instead, what I mean is compressing each image. Compression preserves the image quality while reducing the overall file size, which improves load time.
If you don’t have access to image editing tools like Adobe, try free tools like Squoosh instead. You can tinker with the image to find the perfect balance between file size (which should be less than 1 MB, ideally) and image quality:
5. Drop Unnecessary Videos
Just like not every image adds value to your content, some videos detract from the user experience and increase the page loading time.
To be honest, this tip’s really simple. Just like you should cull any images or plug-ins you don’t need, limit how many videos you’re playing on any webpage.
How do you know which videos to delete? Well, there’s no rule here. However, if it doesn’t educate your audience or add value in some way, cut it or replace it with a shorter, comparable video.
6. Enable Lazy Load
“Lazy loading” means an image or video won’t load until the user begins scrolling down your webpage. How does this reduce HTTP requests?
Since the media doesn’t load right away, it won’t trigger an HTTP request for the initial page load. It doesn’t affect the user experience either, since users won’t know the difference between a regular or lazy load. All they’ll know is that the images or videos are viewable once they scroll down.
To enable lazy load, try out plug-ins like the aptly-named LazyLoad. The script takes up less than 10 KB of space, so it’s not resource-intensive. Just install the plug-in and it gets to work immediately:
7. Use Content Caching
Caching is a great way to reduce HTTP requests.
Essentially, caching means a visitor’s browser stores copies of the scripts it used to display your webpage, rather than delete them all. When the visitor returns, there’s no need to make all those HTTP requests again, because the scripts they need are already stored in the browser unless they clear their cache.
Let me give you some tips for priming your website for content caching.
Don’t use cookies unless they’re essential.
Always use the same URL if you serve the content across different pages.
Build up a library of images and videos and reuse them.
Try out free tools like REDbot to assess your website’s cacheability.
8. Reduce Third-Party Requests
If a visitor’s browser needs to request or download data from a third party to display a website properly, like YouTube or Google Analytics, it’s called a third-party request. The issue? How long your page takes to load depends on how quickly the third-party server responds.
This is a huge problem because you’re not in control of your page loading time. To take back control, think about lazy loading third-party content like embedded YouTube videos. You could also try hosting scripts for necessary programs like Google Analytics locally rather than externally.
Finally, if a plug-in you use makes its own third-party requests, switch it for another plug-in where possible.
How to Make Fewer HTTP Requests
Remove Unnecessary Plug-Ins
Figure out which plug-ins are installed and remove those that you don’t use.
Replace Heavy Plug-Ins With Streamlined Ones
Audit the plug-ins you keep and replace them with more efficient ones if they’re available.
Remove Unnecessary Images
Delete images that don’t add value since each one creates an HTTP request.
Reduce the File Size for Remaining Images
Compress the images you keep to reduce load time.
Drop Unnecessary Videos
Only keep videos that add value to your page.
Enable Lazy Load
Use a plug-in that allows images and videos to load once a user scrolls.
Use Content Caching
To prepare your site for content caching avoid using cookies; use the same URL for content used on different pages; build an image library and re-use them; and audit your site’s ability to be cached.
Reduce Third-Party Requests
Try not to include content that pulls from a third party, like YouTube, since your page load time depends on theirs. You should also replace plug-ins that rely on third-party requests.
Conclusion
HTTP requests are essential to displaying a website and giving your audience an engaging experience. However, too many HTTP requests can disrupt your website performance and deter would-be customers from doing business with you.
The good news? With a few simple tweaks, you can ensure browsers make fewer HTTP requests to your website. You can boost page loading time, improve a webpage’s visual appeal, and, ultimately, increase conversions in the long run.
If you’re not sure where to get started with improving your website’s performance, check out my consulting services and we’ll see how I can help.
Have you tried reducing the number of HTTP requests on your website? Which strategies are working for you?
Search engine optimization (SEO) used to be defined by the number of keywords and keyword synonyms across your website’s content. When Google launched its knowledge graph, SEO shifted away from simply relying on keywords, and search engine crawlers began prioritizing rich snippets and entities on search engine results pages (SERPs). These days, Google has more …
When You’re Setting Up a Business, Did You Know You Need to Pay Attention to Your Company Email and Website?
Setting up a business means attending to what seems like a million little details. Your corporate email and website are two of those details. Don’t drop the ball on them!
But let’s start with business credit.
Business Credit
This is credit in a corporation’s name. It is not tied to the owner’s creditworthiness. Instead, biz credit scores depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Hence consumer and corporation credit scores can vary dramatically.
The Benefits
There are no demands for a personal guarantee. You can quickly get business credit regardless of personal credit quality. And there is no personal credit reporting of company accounts. Biz credit utilization won’t affect your consumer FICO score. Plus the owner isn’t personally liable for the debt the corporation incurs.
The Details
Getting corporate credit is not automatic. Building it requires some work. Some of the steps are intuitive, and some of them are not.
Fundability
Fundability is the current ability of a firm to get funding. Some factors are within your control. Others (like your time in business) aren’t. Your online presence and data are one area which is at or close to 100% with your control.
Business Credit, Fundability, and Business Funding Applications
The better your business credit and fundability are, the more likely you will get approval for financing. Today, let’s concentrate on your online presence, that is, your email address and your website.
Lenders Use Data to Decide on Your Application
They check information from a variety of sources, and they don’t tell you about any of them. Knowing what these secret sources measure can only help you. Understanding what matters the most makes getting a loan A LOT easier, because you know what to improve first. This information is the difference between getting an approval and getting a denial.
Lenders Use LexisNexis Information
LexisNexis is one source where many of the lenders reviewing loan applications get their information from. They offer information regarding likelihood to pay, or not. Lenders compare LexisNexis information to what you put on your loan application. If the application and LexisNexis don’t match, then, the loan providers will deny you a loan. They will see the inconsistency as fraud.
LexisNexis connects all of the data that pertains to you, both positive and negative. They have access to
criminal records
every email address you’ve ever used (these are your professional and personal email addresses)
Lenders Use Online Information Including Your Business Email and Website
One place where lenders and vendors will be looking for your company is online. Even if they’re not specifically checking out your online presence, they may still need to know how to order your product or service, or where to send praise or complaints. Your online presence is where they will find that information, or not.
Your Business Email and Website: Your Website
What happens if your family member or a friend built your website? Maybe that person is talented, but corporate websites differ from personal ones. A business website needs to be easy to navigate. It needs to answer customers’ questions.
Styles differ. Wedding photographers and construction companies differ. They have dissimilar sites and design sensibilities, but they both have Contact and About pages, and information about what they do.
Make sure you own your domain, and not just your domain at Wix or WordPress or the like. You can do this by buying hosting. This is through hosting companies like GoDaddy or HostGator.
Your Business Email and Website: Your Email Address
Given that so much more of lending decisions is going on online these days, then your email address is an opportunity for your firm to puts its best foot forward. Don’t squander this easy and free opportunity! General email addresses like admin@yoursite.com tend to be best.
With a general email address, if someone leaves your employ, another employee can seamlessly take over that email address. A username like admin, webmaster, or even hello is far, far better than cutiepie or the like, even if you’re in a playful industry that caters to kids. After all, your bank and banker aren’t.
Your Business Email and Website: Records Congruency
Keep your records consistent! This includes your online records. LexisNexis and the SBFE (Small Business Financial Exchange) are looking at everything, so it had better match.
Inconsistent records will lead to a denial due to fraud because that’s how lenders interpret inconsistencies. This is a cause of denials which is in the owner’s hands. You have the ability to change and correct this.
This means your corporate name, address, phone number – everything! – must look the same in these places and more:
Every place you have an online presence (your website, Yelp, SoTellUs, etc.)
Build Fundability on Business Credit Applications to Avoid Denials
Keep your firm looking fundable (legit) with:
A professional website and email address
A toll-free phone number
List your phone number with 411
A business address (not a PO box or a UPS box)
Get all necessary licenses
Your Business Email and Website: Online Fundability
There are some aspects of fundability where you should pay particular attention to what’s going on online. They include:
Firm owners listed and listed ownership uniformity
Company name and address uniformity
Industry aligned
Company domain
Information uniform on all records
Online Fundability: Business Ownership Listings
Records consistency matters here, too. Your website should show who owns your company. And that information needs to be consistent. So if the owner is named Susan Johnson on your website’s About page, then she can’t be listed as Sue Johnson on your Contact page. If your ownership changes, you need to show that here.
Business Name and Address Uniformity
Abbreviations can be your downfall here, as can punctuation like hyphens, commas, and colons. If your Contact page says your main office is on Main Street, then your About page can’t say it’s on Main St.
If you move, or you add subsidiaries and other locations, then you need to update that information everywhere. This even means whether you use your 5-digit ZIP code, or a ZIP plus 4 code (9 digits).
Fundability: Industry Alignment
If your industry is over the road trucking, then it needs to be listed that way. Pro tip: when your industry can be called several different names, like long distance trucking, mention those other phrases on your website.
Your Business Email and Website: Company Domain
When your company domain matches your company name, it helps with fundability. Pro tip: try to match what people will be searching for online, so if (for example) the word ‘brothers’ is in your company name, then determine if ‘brothers’ or ‘bros’ will be used by people searching for your company and its goods and services online.
Good websites can help you get funding and convert prospects to customers. While websites differ, there are some things they all need. Such as:
Easy to use navigation – hiding important information won’t help
Speed – if visitors have to hang around and wait for pages to load, they’ll go elsewhere
Intuitive organization – keep your address and phone numbers on your About and Contact pages because people expect that data to be there
Your website also needs:
Branding – if your company is known for the color green, but it’s nowhere to be found on your website, you’re losing an opportunity for connection
Visual design – ugly websites, and those which haven’t had a design update in a decade are not conducive to enhancing your reputation or making sales
SEO – search engine optimization means making your site easier to find. Stuffing in keywords doesn’t help with this, but writing honestly about your biz and using the kinds of terms people search for? That does
One of the more vital items your website needs is content. This can mean blogging, and it certainly means creating pages which explain what you do and what sets your biz apart from its competition. It also means a page devoted to each product you sell or service you provide. Again, you’re making it easier for your prospects to find you.
Setting Up a Business Email and Website: Takeaways
More fundable companies can get more money, and they tend to get more prospects who decide to become customers. One area of fundability you have total or near total control over is your corporate online presence. Keep it professional, uniform. and appealing, and easy to use. We can help you with even more aspects of fundability.
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