8 Practical Tips For Better Website Performance
In this article I am going to give you 8 Practical Tips for Better Website Performance. So here we go:
Have you wondered what slow page speed (aka Website Performance) could mean to your website and your business? Page speed affects the two most important things about your website:
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Search Engine Rankings
Ever since Google announced in 2010 that page speed will be considered as a factor for page ranking, website owners are looking for ways to improve their page speed.
Read: Using site speed in web search ranking
Take a look at this trend report that clearly shows a significant increase in interest about page speed:
Visitors
No one likes to wait on a page that takes too long to load. This applies even to your visitors. If your page takes too long to load, they’re going to leave your website resulting in loss of business.
What does it mean to have good website performance?
Website performance along with page speed are critical factors when it comes to search engine optimization. The most obvious reason to have a good page speed is to have better search engine rankings. After all, that’s what all website owners aim for.
Having a good search engine ranking means you get more visitors. More visitors means more chances of converting them into customers and growing your business.
Website Performance Tips
1. Get a good hosting Server
Needless to say, if you don’t have a good hosting server, none of the below steps will amount to anything. So, the first thing that you do is — GET A FAST SERVER!
And by fast server I mean, the one which uses SSD drives — as they don’t have moving parts, they can respond to a page request much faster than traditional disk drives.
Some of the hosting companies that use SSD drives are: InMotionHosting, BlueHost & DreamHost.
2. Analyze your website
This will give you a starting point to improve your page speed. This will also help you identify the problem areas you should focus on first.
A number of free tools are available to analyze your website, below are the most popular ones:
PageSpeed Insights: Just plug in your website URL and allow Google to scan your website and suggest areas for improvement. Visit PageSpeed Insights to start scanning your website.
WebPageTest: A tool that gives you comprehensive information about your website such as time taken for start of request, DNS lookup, first-byte etc. It also includes a waterfall chart that indicates the different stages of an HTTP request made to your website. To scan your website with WebPageTest, go to www.webpagetest.org/.
Pingdom Website Speed Test: Pingdom scans your website from multiple test locations. It gives you detailed information such as load time, performance insights and suggestions to improve your page speed. Go to https://tools.pingdom.com/, plug in your URL and test location to start scanning your website.
3. Enable GZIP compression
GZIP compression allows you to compress pages before rendering them to your visitors. Compressed page are smaller in size and get delivered faster. If you’re not sure about GZIP compression being enabled on your website, check it with a simple tool such as http://checkgzipcompression.com/
Images are great for your website — it helps the visitor to visualize your content. However having images that aren’t optimized could negatively impact your website’s page speed.
To improve your page speed, make sure you’re using only the required number of images and the right image format. Use JPEG when possible, use PNG otherwise.
Also reduce your image size using tools such as Photoshop without reducing the quality too much. Smaller image size means faster download, resulting in better page speed.
Visit Image optimization to see a complete image optimization checklist.
5. Minimize and minify
Parts of your website such as images, scripts, and CSS increase the number of HTTP requests needed to download them. More HTTP requests means more page load time.
Minimize the number of HTTP requests by reducing the number of scripts and CSS elements on your page.
Use a tool like YUI Compressor (http://yui.github.io/yuicompressor/) to minify your CSS and Javascript code. Use PageSpeed Insights to minify your HTML code.
6. Use CDN
Content Delivery Network is an easy way to deliver your web content. Using a CDN means that your content gets distributed to multiple servers around the world.
When a HTTP request for your website comes in, the content is delivered from a server that is closest to the user, resulting in a faster page speed.
The best CDN network that I use is KeyCDN.
You will definitely see improvement in site speed once you have the site configured with a CDN.
Each time your page redirects, your browser has to jump to a new place looking for the resource. This means every redirect adds wait time for the request and the response. This can significantly increase your page’s load time.
Eliminate as many redirects as possible. Use a tool like https://varvy.com/tools/redirects/ to check if your website has redirects.
8. Place JavaScript at the bottom
JavaScripts can cause your page rendering to be deferred. Placing JavaScript on the top means these scripts load first and then your page content gets delivered. This can significantly increase your page load time.
To avoid this, be sure to place your JavaScript at the bottom of your page content. This will allow the page to made visible first to the visitor before parsing your JavaScript.
Use a tool like Gtmetrix to check if you have any JavaScript that’s blocking your page from being rendered.
Conclusion
Good content with better website performance is what you need for your search engine rankings, your visitors and your business. Improving your page speed and your website performance isn’t a one-time activity.
You need to continue your optimization efforts as and when you add newer pages to your site. The seven tips stated above aren’t the only ones, but these are a good starting point for you to start improving your website performance.
Originally published at hostingpill.com on August 5, 2016.
