How lazy loading helps your website’s performance

How lazy loading helps your website’s performance

How to be lazy and improve at the same time?

We were always told that if you want to improve and progress, you must be active and put in lots of effort. This is a globally accepted rule, isn’t it?

However, if you are after improving your website performance, you will come across an approach which is called lazy loading. Lazy loading is one of the effective methods that is utilized for the purpose of website performance optimization.

Hence, in this case being lazy can enhance your website performance, but how?

What is Lazy Loading?

Lazy loading is the name of a method that is created in order to shorten a website’s loading time and consequently enhances the website’s speed. This method, while works for all types of websites, is more appropriate for websites with large numbers of content, photos and videos.

You might have come across the situation that when you request for a website, you can’t see the whole contents on your screen until all contents, photos and videos on the requested web page are loaded completely. The procedure normally takes time and would have a negative impact on the website’s user experience. Such a delay is avoidable easily, by preventing “below the fold” contents and photos from loading, until the user scrolls down! In this case, the content that is immediately visible to the user on his/her screen will only be loaded, so the website speed sounds very quick to the user. Once the user scrolls down, other contents will start to be loaded.

 How to implement lazy loading?

There are many ways to integrate lazy loading on your website. We will go through three main methods that are being used currently, as the lazy loading implementation method has been evolving over the years.

1-  Lazy Loading with JavaScript

There are an endless number of JavaScript templates that can integrate lazy loading to your website. Blazy.js, LazyLoad, lazysizes and yall.js are just a few out of many that can be used to implement lazy loading for your web project.

2-  Native Lazy Loading

This is the simplest way to implement lazy loading by adding the relevant loading attribute to website content. Native lazy loading method is now available on Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox and Opera.

3-  Lazy Loading by WordPress

WordPress provides lazy loading plugins such as a3 Lazy Load, for users to implement lazy loading on their website.

Lazy Loading Pros and Cons

Lazy Loading method, like all other methods, comes with advantages and disadvantages. Let’s discuss them in detail now.

Advantages:

·         Better User Experience

It goes without saying that fast loading websites have more chances to be navigated by users and that’s exactly what lazy loading does! Users are not tolerant enough these days to wait for more than a few seconds for a web page to be loaded. Hence, lazy loading will improve your website performance in favor of users’ preference and consequently user experience will be improved.

·         Less load for host and server

Lazy loading eases the pressure on your host by preventing unnecessary content from loading. In many cases, users enter into a website to see a photo only. By using a lazy loading method, they will see the photo and not other content on the webpage, as they wouldn’t scroll down. In contrast, for websites that are not using this method, all content on the webpage will be loaded completely, while it is not necessary.

Disadvantages:

·         Less Ads Revenue

Lazy loading websites would render the Ads, only when it is necessary. Therefore, the viewability of the Ads will negatively be affected. Obviously, less Ads will be ordered by advertisers to such a website that leads to less advertisement revenue.

·         Being bypassed by Google crawlers

Another disadvantage with the lazy loading approach is the probability of lazy-loaded content to be misread or ignored by Google crawlers. Because the resource is set to be loaded when needed, it is likely to be bypassed by Google crawlers which leads to less search engine results.

Be on the safe side with Lazy Loading implementation

Even though lazy loading improves the whole website performance by speeding-up your website loading time, considering the disadvantages, it is recommended to be watchful, when making the decision to integrate the approach to your website. By carefully considering the additional cost of website design, it is always a good idea to test it by working with a professional web design and digital marketing firm to see how it impacts the crucial elements such as UX, traffic and most importantly revenue. You must bear in mind that by utilizing every single method, in this case lazy loading, you would sacrifice something.

As a conclusion, in order to be on the safe side, you will be better off by working with a well-experienced and reputable web design company and digital marketing service provider to make the right decision for your business.

If you are looking to optimize your website performance, we at Websima are more than happy to help. In this case, do not hesitate to contact us and ask for a free consultation meeting to discuss your project in detail. We are always committed to provide the best solution for our clients, based on their needs.