Social Sharing Buttons, use Wisely
Do you have poor site load time, affecting user experience, due to social sharing buttons?
Social sharing buttons can impact your blog’s performance in both positive and negative ways. On the plus side, they make it easier for readers to share your content, which can significantly increase your reach and visibility—websites with sharing buttons are often linked to far more on platforms like X or Pinterest compared to those without.
However, there are notable downsides. Many social sharing buttons, especially those powered by third-party scripts, can slow down your website’s load times, negatively affecting user experience and potentially your SEO rankings. For example, removing poor performing sharing buttons has been shown to reduce load times dramatically, in some cases from over 8 seconds to under 3 seconds. Slow-loading sites can frustrate visitors and hurt your search engine performance.
Additionally, engagement with these buttons is often low—studies show that less than 0.2% of users actually use them, especially on mobile device. Too many buttons can also clutter your site and distract from your main content or conversion goals.
Best practices:
- Use only a few, essential sharing buttons to minimize performance impact.
- Prefer lightweight, static HTML or CSS-based buttons over heavy third-party scripts.
- Regularly test your site’s speed and adjust your sharing options as needed.
- Consider placing buttons where they don’t interrupt the reading experience.
How Did I Measure Blog Performance:
I used an awesome tool to measure my blog’s performance from pingdom, which not only measured the load time but also other metrics such as performance insights, request types and content size. I still wanted my readers to have the ability to share my posts/articles on a number of social platforms, so I replaced the sharing buttons (as part of the theme) with the sharing capability of the WordPress plugin from SumoMe.
What did I do:
Removed the social sharing buttons that came with my blog theme and reduced my overall site performance from above 8 seconds load time to below 3.
Before removing the sharing buttons:
After removing the sharing buttons:
I can safely say, yes, poorly performing social sharing buttons can negatively impact your site’s performance, but think carefully about the ones you choose if you want the social sharing capability on your blog, for now, I will be sticking with the sharing capability of SumoMe (that was back in 2016). On my site I now use Sassy Social Share, why I hear you ask?
The Most Popular Social Sharing Buttons WordPress Plugins
The most popular WordPress plugins bloggers use for adding social sharing buttons are:
- Novashare: Known for its speed, ease of use, and highly customizable share buttons for all major social networks including Facebook, X (Twitter), Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn. It offers both inline and floating bar options, plus share counts for social proof.
- Monarch: Developed by Elegant Themes, Monarch supports 35+ social networks and offers multiple display options like floating sidebars, popups, and fly-ins. It’s highly customizable and user-friendly, with advanced triggers for when to show sharing prompts.
- Sassy Social Share: A free, lightweight plugin supporting 100+ platforms. It’s GDPR compliant, mobile responsive, and offers extensive icon customization without slowing down your site.
- Social Warfare: Popular for its sleek, fast-loading buttons and rich customization features. It integrates easily with most WordPress themes and is designed to boost social sharing without affecting site speed.
- Shareaholic and AddToAny: Both are widely used for their versatility, supporting a range of networks and offering analytics, floating bars, and inline buttons.
These plugins are favored because they balance strong social sharing features with performance and customization, helping bloggers maximize reach without sacrificing site speed.
Social Sharing is a Balanace Visibility and Performance
In summary, while social sharing buttons can help increase your content’s reach, they can also slow down your blog if not implemented carefully. Balance visibility with performance by choosing lightweight solutions and limiting the number of buttons you display
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