Website performance is always something that should be a top priority, especially when there is so much online competition. In this article, I am going to give you how you can improve your website speed with Tips for Better Website Performance. So here we go.
1. Decreasing HTTP requests
A report on Yahoo provides you almost 80% of a website’s load time is spent downloading various pieces of the pages. Parts like style-sheets, image, scripts, flash etc. Before each of these will be accessed an HTTP request has to be made. Therefore, the more of these components you have, the longer the page load time.
You can however improve the speed by employing CSS instead of images wherever possible.
By trimming the number of elements on the page and using a single combination of multiple style sheets you will be able to increase the performance of your website.
2. Enabe gzip compression
If your webpage is made up of high quality content, the size could be over a 100kb, thus taking time to download. Due to their bulkiness, it is best to compress them through zip.
This reduces the load time and makes everyone happy. With compression, the bandwidth of the page is reduced thus reducing HTTP response.
3. Optimize your images
As images are part of the heaviest components of your web’s content, you need to optimize them to reduce load time. With image, three things are critical: size, format and the src attribute.
Image size: Since image size is more it will affect load time, crop image to a reasonable size. Also reduce colour depth to the minimal acceptable standard and remove image comments.
For Image Format: While PNG is a good option, older browser might not support it. JPEG is the best. Avoid the use of BMPs
Src attribute: once the size and format of your image optimizes, get the code in order too.
4. CDN helps website performance
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.
You will definitely see improvement in your website performance once you add your website to a CDN.
All our cPanel hosting plans had the CDN feature, from where you can add the basic CDN.
5. Minimum use of Redirections
With redirects, you generate additional HTTP response. This only increases load time which you do not want. Using a HTTP redirect on the other hand can help transfer mobile users directly to the mobile version of the URL without redirects could help. minimizing the redirects will also increase your website performance.
6. Avoid bad requests
Check for HTTP 404 errors (“Page Not Found”) and avoid re-directs on resources. Also, monitor server errors and work with your developers to address any repetitive errors which should boost your website performance.
7. Enable browser caching
On visit to any website, the elements on that page are stored in a cache on the hard drive. This prevents having to send another HTTP request to the server when next the site is visited.
Having your web cache enabled can significantly reduce browser load time by as much as 70%, since all the required components will not be downloaded again.
8. Google Page Speed
PageSpeed insights analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster. Reducing page load times can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates.
Google recommends few insights and you can check the website speed from this URL https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
9. Update software versions
One simple way to boost application performance is to select components for your software stack depending on their reputation for stability and performance.
In addition, because developers of high‑quality components are likely to pursue performance enhancements and fix bugs over time, it pays to use the latest stable version of software.
Newer builds also take advantage of new compiler optimizations, including tuning for new hardware.
Stable new releases are typically more compatible and higher‑performing than older releases. It’s also easier to keep on top of tuning optimizations, bug fixes, and security alerts when you stay on top of software updates.
10. MySQL Database tunning
Whether it is cleaning out old unused tables or creating indexes for faster access there are always things that can optimize. Never save images to database directly.
Optimizing MySQL is also very important. Unfortunately this is very specific to your environment and your setup so we can’t provide recommended configurations. The MySQL/MariaDB configuration file is normally located in /etc/my.cnf.
A suitable tool is the MySQL Turner script. It is read-only and won’t make configuration changes. It will give you an overview of your server’s performance and make some basic recommendations about improvements that you can make after it completes. Here are a couple other tools you can use as well.
- MySQL tuning primer script
- phpMyAdmin
11. Make your website mobile friendly
It is no longer news that a large percentage of the people access the internet via their tablet and mobile devices. Thus, having a responsive web-design is non-negotiable.
Given the wide spread acceptance of smart phones, it is essential you give mobile a priority in designing your website.
Conclusion
I hope that you've learned a few things about optimizing the speed of websites and how you can implement some of the methods into your own projects.
By practicing our recommendations, you will encourage visitors to come back, remain on your site and enjoy a rewarding browsing experience whilst there.
The bottom line is, by speeding up your sites you're not just contributing to a better user experience for your users, but a better user experience for the web!
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