It’s remarkable that 47% of users anticipate a page to fully load within a mere 2 seconds or less. The speed at which your page loads plays a vital role in the success of your digital marketing endeavors for various reasons. When users encounter difficulties accessing your site or become frustrated with the process, there is a significant chance they will abandon their pursuit of your content or products, seeking alternatives elsewhere. A delay of just 500 milliseconds in connection speed can lead to an increase in “peak frustration” of more than 26%, coupled with a decline in user engagement by 8%. Moz suggests an ideal page load time of 0-4 seconds and has observed that pages loading within a single second exhibit a conversion rate 2.5 times greater than their counterparts that take five or more seconds.
The implication is crystal clear. The time it takes for users to access your website often forms their initial impression of your brand. Subjecting them to sluggish page loads is a guaranteed way to initiate the relationship on a negative note. You even risk alienating returning users and customers, discouraging them from converting again. This is where the concept of lazy loading comes into play. Among the myriad of page speed optimization techniques at your disposal, lazy loading stands out as a potent method for enhancing performance and maximizing your chances of converting new users. Let’s delve deeper!
Understanding Lazy Loading
In essence, lazy loading enables the postponement of loading certain slow-loading page elements until after the primary content of your page has rendered. It’s akin to ensuring a user “lands” on your site (preventing them from bouncing) before burdening them with the task of loading larger, less critical elements situated below the initial viewable area of your webpage.
Introduced back in May 2020, Google’s Core Web Vitals can be viewed as the fundamental benchmarks for a site’s technical well-being—indicators that Google employs to gauge the UX (user experience) offered by a page. They are integral components of a broader algorithm update known as the Page Experience Update, which will elevate user experience and website performance to critical ranking factors starting in May of the following year.
Google’s latest technical prerequisites for maintaining a healthy and rank-worthy UX. For comprehensive guidance on technical SEO, explore our detailed guide on conducting a technical SEO audit_._ While speed has long been a crucial ranking factor for Google, the introduction of Core Web Vitals and the announcement of the Page Experience Update signal a paradigm shift in the role page speed will assume in attracting organic traffic moving forward. The remaining two elements of Core Web Vitals—First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)—pertain to how users interact with a page after they have accessed it. In the context of our discussion, it’s the first element, Largest Contentful Paint, where lazy loading can truly make a difference. By deferring the loading of non-essential elements until after a user has “arrived” at your webpage, you significantly increase the likelihood of not only retaining that user but also converting them.
Identifying the Need for Lazy Loading on Your Site
A slow-loading website doesn’t automatically necessitate the implementation of lazy loading. A more prudent approach to page speed optimization involves analyzing your site using performance tools such as PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
An illustrative example of a page speed assessment from PageSpeed Insights. These tools will furnish you with a range of recommendations, some of which may or may not involve incorporating lazy loading for images. However, they will undoubtedly encompass other crucial page speed optimization strategies, including:
- Activating Gzip compression
- Minifying JavaScript, CSS, and HTML
- Minimizing redirects
- Eliminating render-blocking JavaScript
- Utilizing browser caching effectively
- Enhancing server response time
- Employing a content delivery network (CDN)
- Optimizing images and videos The key lies in prioritizing the elements that offer the most substantial improvements to your site’s page speed—the actions that yield the greatest overall “gains.” If you encounter the recommendation to “defer offscreen images,” it’s a clear indication that implementing lazy loading for images is beneficial.
The “defer offscreen images” recommendation serves as a strong indicator for the need for lazy loading. Furthermore, the new Core Web Vitals report available in Google Search Console provides a comprehensive overview of the pages on your site that might be experiencing LCP issues.
Google defines a “good” LCP as anything four seconds or less:
It’s worth reiterating that an LCP exceeding four seconds for a particular page doesn’t automatically necessitate the use of lazy loading. However, this report can serve as a valuable tool for pinpointing areas on your site where performance might be lagging. From there, utilizing the speed tools mentioned earlier, you can conduct in-depth diagnostics on specific pages and determine whether the recommendation to “defer offscreen images” signifies a need for lazy loading.
Implementing Lazy Loading
If you’re considering implementing lazy loading самостоятельно, our initial piece of advice would be: reconsider! The exception to this rule applies if you possess the expertise of a seasoned developer. Alternatively, if you’re a budding developer comfortable with implementing lazy loading on a staging site and subsequently conducting A/B tests to compare the new speed scores against your live site, then by all means, feel empowered to take on lazy loading yourself. For WordPress users, there exists a plethora of helpful plugins that can simplify the implementation of lazy loading, with Lazy Load and Smush being two prominent examples. Smush, in particular, is an all-encompassing image optimization solution that bundles image compression, lazy loading, and next-generation image conversion capabilities—all of which are vital for image SEO.
Smush: Your go-to solution for WordPress image optimization and lazy loading. However, it’s essential to note that depending on your chosen content management system (CMS)—be it WordPress, Shopify, Bigcommerce, or Webflow—implementing lazy loading might not be as straightforward as installing a plugin. Shopify, for instance, recommends utilizing its own lazy loading implementation, while Bigcommerce provides support for third-party plugins that enable lazy loading on popular themes like Stencil and Blueprint. If this all seems a tad overwhelming, let’s circle back to our initial sentiment: unless you possess unwavering confidence in your development skills, it’s best to refrain from investing time and resources attempting to implement lazy loading on your own. Instead, consider enlisting the services of a professional developer—like the ones over at LOCALiQ—who can adeptly and safely integrate lazy loading into your site (and potentially assist you with other site speed optimizations while they’re at it). If you’re confident in your abilities and believe it can shave off a couple of seconds from your site’s loading time, then allocating resources to lazy loading might be worthwhile. However, entrusting the task to a skilled developer is often the more prudent choice. In all likelihood, the investment will yield substantial returns through improved conversion rates and increased revenue in the long run.
Assessing the Importance of Lazy Loading for Your Website
In conclusion, don’t feel pressured to dedicate your or your developer’s valuable time to implementing lazy loading if it’s not identified as a potentially high-impact action item in your PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix reports. There exists a multitude of alternative site speed improvements that warrant prioritization if they promise more significant load time reductions. These include Gzip compression, minifying JavaScript, CSS, and HTML, eliminating render-blocking JavaScript, leveraging browser caching, enhancing server response time, and many more. Conversely, if you manage a visually driven website with an abundance of images and notice a significant number of slow-loading LCP pages in your Core Web Vitals report within Google Search Console, taking the time to run diagnostics using site speed performance tools is highly recommended. Lazy loading can substantially enhance load times for websites and pages containing larger elements located below the fold. For such websites, implementing lazy loading is a no-brainer. Lastly, don’t overlook the availability of hiring a development and design professional who can seamlessly implement lazy loading without disrupting your existing setup (and potentially provide assistance with other site speed improvements in the process).