Moving around the internet, one of the most important things about any website is Speed and it cannot be compromised whether one uses mobile or web. 53% of consumers expect websites to load in two seconds or less. And 40% will abandon a page that takes three or more seconds. In order to excel in the speed department, there are some tips to be followed.
Minimize HTTP requests:
80% of a Web page’s load time is spent downloading the different parts of the page, like images, style sheets, and scripts. An HTTP request is made for each one of these elements, so the more on-page components, the longer it takes for the page to render. If you use Google Chrome, you can use the browser’s Developer Tools to see how many HTTP requests your site makes.
- Right-click on the page you want to analyze, and click “Inspect,” then click the “Network” tab. The “Time” column shows how long it takes to load each file. In the bottom left corner, you’ll also see the number of total requests the site makes
Reduce redirects:
Each time a page redirects to another page, your visitor faces additional time waiting for the HTTP request-response cycle to complete.
Optimize Images:
- Resize your images before uploading them:
- Use an image-editing program to adjust images to the correct size yourself before adding them to your site.
Compress the images:
Compress the images you must, as they impact your site speed quite a lot. Image files tend to be large and as such can seriously slow loading speed. Without trimming them, you will always struggle to achieve much page speed optimization.
How to compress your images:
One of the best image The compression tools available is ImageResize. All you have to do is click the link, upload your re-sized image and this tool will reduce the file size without reducing the resolution.
- If you are a WordPress user, you can use WP Smush. It’s lightweight, easy to install, and works like a charm. After uploading the tool, just choose the ‘Automatically smush my images’ on the upload option. It also allows you to set up maximum width and height.
Optimization of Website plugins:
If you notice your site is running slowly, or you believe it could be running much more effectively, perform a plugin review. Also, plugins that stay unused often are neglected when updating WordPress. Outdated plugins severely compromise security.
- Go through the list and identify any plugins you aren’t actually using or that don’t seem to be adding anything worthwhile to your site performance. Go ahead and get rid of these.
- After you disable a plugin, run your site through a tool like GT Metrix to check the speed of your site with it gone.
To save yourself from this trouble in the future, ask yourself moving forward before adding a new plug-in if the functionality is really worth the trade-off in site speed.
Allow Browser Caching:
Browser caching is a technology that allows a visitor’s browser to store copies of your site’s individual pages so that when the visitor returns in the future, the content can be called up from within the cache rather than reloading the entire page, which saves a lot of time and resources.
How to Enable Caching?
- If your site is custom-coded, it is best to find a host that has server-side caching enabled. Be that Varnish, a good nginX configuration, or something else, you can get excellent results.
- There is a host of free WordPress caching plugins, perhaps none more popular than W3 Total Cache.
- Install it and go to Page Cache (It is below General Settings) and check the box next to it.
Ensure the Website Scripts:
With respect to the platform your site uses, you may need to check back regularly to determine whether new releases of your site’s scripts are available. The regularly updated site scripts will help remove the possibility of coded roadblocks that prevent your site from loading quickly.
- If you’re using WordPress, can find these in the updates tab.
Optimize your Code - CSS, JavaScript, and HTML:
By optimizing your code (including removing spaces, commas, and other unnecessary characters), you can dramatically increase your page speed. Also remove code comments, formatting, and unused code.
- Since every unnecessary piece of code adds to the size of your page, it’s important that you eliminate extra spaces, line breaks, and indentation. This ensures that your pages are as lean as possible. Combining files is exactly what it sounds like. If your site runs multiple CSS and JavaScript files, you can combine them into one.
- There are several ways to minify and combine files, and if your site runs on WordPress, plugins like WP Rocket makes the process fairly simple.
Turn On Gzip Compression:
The browser’s life can be made easy by asking your server to compress files before passing them on. Zipped files mean less work for the browser, which helps to speed up the website.
- Text files contain a lot of similar code. GZIP temporarily replaces the strings of repeat code and white space in your HTML and CSS files, making them lighter in an instant.
Turn on GZIP:
All WordPress users need to do is to install W3 Total Cache, a free WordPress plugin, and follow these steps.
- Navigate to the Settings page of W3 Total Cache
- Click Browser Cache
- Select the box before Enable HTTP (gzip) compression
