15 Tips for Website Performance Optimization

When it comes to website performance optimization it all comes down to speed, these tips will help you get your site loading faster.

15 Tips for Website Performance Optimization

Even now, when the Internet speed of most providers exceeds 100 Mbit/s, and mobile operators are developing 5G, the question of site loading speed remains relevant. This parameter significantly affects conversion, bounce rate, traffic, and other KPIs that are important for a business. Besides, search engines such as Google take into account the speed of a website in the search ranking. 

 

But before we bounce over  the tips there is a blog about a web crawler you should be aware of so that you can first pinpoint your website performance issues.

 

So, let’s look at a few suggestions for improving site performance.

JPEG Image Compression

Typically, JPEG images are loaded from top to bottom and are called sequential. But there are also progressive JPEGs that , on the contrary, show the entire image by loading only a portion of the data. This means that the image may be slightly pixelated until it is fully loaded. Progressive JPEGs are smaller, so using them will speed up the loading and overall performance of your site. Your server requests will be shorter and more efficient, which will also reduce the use of resources such as bandwidth and disk space.

Reduce HTTP Requests

When your browser receives data from the server, it uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Thus, the more HTTP requests your web page makes, the slower it will load.

Running a site speed test will tell you how many requests it needs to create a specific page.

Minify CSS, HTML, and JavaScript

Minification of the code is the process of removing unnecessary spaces, newlines, comments, and block separators from your code. These types of characters are used for easier reading and visual purposes, however, they are not necessary for proper code execution. We recommend the use of GTMetrix. One of the advantages of GTMetrix is ​​the ability to instantly view optimized versions of CSS, JS, and HTML files by clicking the See optimized version button next to the file. Hence, minification will increase the loading speed of your page, which will lead to satisfied visitors and better performance of search engines.

Use Separate JS and CSS Files

When a user first loads your web page, the browser caches external resources such as JavaScript and CSS files. Thus, it is better to place such files outside the pages.

Implement Lazy Loading

It allows you to build web pages that can be updated asynchronously at any time. This means that instead of reloading the entire page when the user performs an action, you can simply refresh part of this page. And development libraries such as jQuery, Prototype, and MooTools can make delayed content loading much easier.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is the best option for  speeding up loading a site and optimizing its resources. CDN provides fast loading of your static content (images, CSS, JavaScript, video, etc.), delivering it to the place closest to your visitor, thereby significantly improving server response time. It is intended for large sites with a huge amount of content, but  any site can use it to speed up the work. 

Optimize Web Caching

Before opening a page, the browser needs to download all its content (HTML, CSS, Javascript, and images). Downloading large and bulky sites can be a pretty painful experience if you have slow internet (or you are using a mobile phone). Each of the files sends a separate request to the server, and the more such requests it receives at the same time, the more it needs to work, and the slower the page will load. In this case, use the browser cache. The browser cache can save part of the site’s files with the user. This means that the user’s browser will need to download fewer  data and make fewer requests to the server, thereby reducing the loading time of the site.

Optimize Your Code 

Analyze your source code. Do you really need all the tags you use, or can you use CSS to display? For example, instead of using <h1> <em> your title </em> </h1>, you can easily use CSS to make the title italic using the font-style property. Writing effective code not only reduces the size of your HTML and CSS documents but also makes them easier to maintain.

Fix 404 Errors

Any missing file generates an HTTP 404 error. On the “average” site with the “average” module load, you can see how 60-100 MB of memory is used by your server for 404 delivery. We do not recommend installing plugins or modules for checking 404 errors.Instead, we recommend periodically launching the website using an external service such as Online Broken Link Checker or a tool like Screaming Frog. These tools  ensure that you do not waste server resources on this task.

Enable Gzip Compression

If someone visits your site, a request is sent to your server to deliver the required files. The larger these files, the longer it will take to download them. By compressing your web page and CSS before sending it to your browser, you can significantly reduce download time due to the smaller file size. Gzip finds the same lines in a text file and temporarily replaces them, thereby reducing the overall file size. Thus, Gzip compression is especially beneficial in the field of web technologies since HTML and CSS files use many repeating lines and spaces. 

Resizing Images 

This is the process of scaling an image to fit its size as specified in CSS or HTML. For example, a user uploaded a 400 x 400 image and used it as a 40 x 40 thumbnail, setting this size in HTML / CSS. This means that the browser must first download the original file and reduce it before displaying it. Using properly scaled images will help you consume less traffic and speed up your site, especially on mobile gadgets and tablets. Hence, scaled images take up less space, load faster, and reduce server resource usage.

Enabling Keep-Alive

Keep-Alive allows the user’s browser to download all the necessary content (such as JavaScript, CSS, images, video, etc.) through a permanent TCP connection instead of creating multiple requests for each file. This will provide speed and performance, as your visitor’s browser will be able to get everything from one permanent HTTP connection. In simple words, Keep-Alive is a form of communication between the server and the browser that can reduce the number of requests and page loading speed.

Infrastructure

Having a fast web host is no less important than any optimization of site performance that you could do. We recommend using VPS or, if you are using WordPress or Drupal, a managed host, depending on your level of knowledge and time.

Hotlink protection

Hotlink protection refers to restricting HTTP referrers to prevent other users from embedding your resources on other websites. Hotlink protection will save you bandwidth by preventing other sites from showing your images.

Removing Unnecessary HTTP Requests

Unloading page elements (JavaScript, images, CSS, and flash files) takes up system resources when loading a site. HTTP requests to such elements noticeably slow down the site. To avoid “unnecessary” requests, you need to reduce the number of page components. 

There are several ways to do this:

 

  • Combine several images into one graphic file (CSS sprite);
  • Use inline images in the page style sheet;
  • Combine several CSS files or scripts on one page into one file;
  • Minimize the number of scripts and plugins.

 

Thus, the speed of loading a site is extremely important, since every second can affect the loss of sales, as well as the position of the site on Google. Spend some time looking through your site’s speed test results and look for the issues that have the greatest impact on your site’s performance.