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Boost Your Website’s Performance: Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO

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Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO
Users may become impatient with a website that loads slowly, and search engine rankings may suffer. Enhancing user experience and increasing your website’s presence online can both be accomplished by optimizing website loading times. Learn tried-and-true methods, necessary equipment, and best practices to decrease the loading time of your website and keep visitors interested.

Table of Contents

Waiting for a slow-loading website to launch can be a significant turnoff for users in this age of immediate gratification. Additionally to having a poor effect on user experience, it may lower your search engine ranks. To ensure a fluid surfing experience, boost consumer happiness, and improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), it is essential to optimize the loading speed of your website.

Effect on user experience

To give users a satisfying experience, a website must load quickly, beautifully, and should be easy to navigate. Visitors anticipate quick interactions and immediate access to information. Increased bounce rates, where people leave your site in irritation, might result from slow-loading pages. You can enhance conversions and customer retention by increasing loading speed. You can also keep customers on your site longer and lower bounce rates.

Impact on the rankings in search engines

An important ranking element for search engines like Google is loading speed. Websites that load quickly have a higher chance of appearing higher in search results. This is because websites that provide a flawless user experience—of which page loading speed is a crucial component—are given precedence by search engines. Your visibility may suffer and it may be more difficult for customers to find you if your website is slow. You may raise your site’s search engine ranks and increase organic traffic by optimizing loading speed.

Optimization Tools You Can Use

It is best practice to run your website through the tools below even before you start to optimize it.  Check the results and see the issues that your website is facing.  Go through the action items one by one and start applying them to your website.  Run your website again in the tests after you update your website to see for any improvement on your loading times.  

For GTmetrix and Pingdom, try to change the server location from time to time.  Initially choose a server closer to your hosting datacenter, and eventually choose one further away.

  1. Google PageSpeed Insights Analyze the loading time of your website and get suggestions for improvement.
  2. GTmetrix Evaluate the performance of your website, spot any bottlenecks, and get useful suggestions for optimization.
  3. Pingdom Track the loading time of your website and spot performance problems with thorough data.
  4. WebPageTest Assess the performance and speed of your website from various places across the world.

Techniques for Optimization and Best Practices

1. Reduce File Sizes

Minimize your file sizes through minification and increase loading speed, compress images and enhance code.

FOR NON-WORDPRESS WEBSITES

Here are several software programs and applications that can help with code optimization, picture compression, and file size reduction:

  • Using the online image compression application TinyPNG, PNG and JPEG images can be compressed without noticeably sacrificing quality. It offers both a subscription plan for more usage and a free version with restrictions.
  • Online gaming platform Kraken.io a platform for cloud-based image optimization that enables image compression and optimization for faster loading. There are paid options for higher consumption and more advanced capabilities, as well as a free plan with constrained functionality.
  • ImageOptim is a desktop application for Mac users that optimizes image files without sacrificing quality. It supports a number of picture formats and is free to use.
  • Gzip is a piece of software that makes it possible to compress files, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, to make them smaller and load more quickly. It is extensively supported by web servers and is freely accessible.
  • UglifyJS is a JavaScript compression tool that minifies and optimizes JavaScript code to minimize file size. It may be integrated into build processes or used as a command-line tool. It is open-source and free.
  • A CSS minification tool called CSSNano optimizes CSS code, eliminates extra spaces, and shrinks file size. It may be used independently or combined with construction procedures. It is open-source and free.

FOR WordPress WEBSITES

There are various plugins that can assist WordPress users with compressing and optimizing pictures, HTML, JS, and CSS files.

Here are some well-known examples:

  •  WP Smush. With no loss in visual quality, this plugin automatically optimizes the photos on your WordPress website. Additionally, it provides options like bulk image optimization and sluggish loading. A pro version of the plugin with more features is available in addition to a free one with restrictions.
  • Autoptimize aggregates, minifies, and caches the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on your website to make them more efficient. Additionally, it can assist with picture optimization and integration with other caching plugins. It has a simple user interface and is a free plugin.
  • WP Rocket  is a feature-rich caching plugin with options for CSS, JavaScript, and HTML optimization. Additionally, it offers options for browser caching, limiting render-blocking resources, and lazy loading of images. The premium plugin WP Rocket has a one-time cost.
  • W3 Total Cache is a well-liked caching plugin that also provides tools for minifying and compressing CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files. It offers sophisticated caching options and connects with well-known content delivery networks (CDNs). The plugin has additional premium capabilities that can be used for a fee.

These plugins can help you tremendously with many elements of WordPress site optimization, like enhancing loading speed and reducing file sizes. In order to choose the plugin that best meets your requirements and tastes, it is advised that you carefully consider their features, compatibility with your website, and user reviews.

2. Activate Browser Caching

Use browser caching to locally store static files and speed up subsequent page loads.

FOR WordPress WEBSITES

  • W3 Total Cache offers options to enable browser caching in addition to other caching features. You can define expiration dates for various file kinds and it generates cache-control headers.
  • There is a straightforward toggle option in WP Rocket to enable browser caching. It automatically adds the relevant headers to the files on your website so that the user’s browser may cache them.

For non-wordpress websites

For websites that are not powered by WordPress, you can enable browser caching by manually enabling it in your server’s settings or by adding particular code to your website’s .htaccess file. The results of your test with GTmetrix and WebPageTest should provide comprehensive advise on how to use caching and improving speed. 

Please note that directly modifying the .htaccess file requires access to your server’s configuration. If you are unsure or uncomfortable making changes, it’s best to consult with your hosting provider or a professional developer for assistance.

To enable browser caching via the .htaccess file, you can add the following code snippets:

Apache servers

				
					bash
Copy code
# Enable Browser Caching
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
</IfModule>

The code above sets the expiration dates for different file types. You can modify the durations according to your requirements.

Nginx servers

				
					ruby
Copy code
# Enable Browser Caching
location ~* \.(css|js|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|svg|pdf|ico)$ {
    expires 1M;
    add_header Cache-Control "public";
}

3. Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Use CDNs to spread your website’s content across various servers around the world. This will cut down on latency and speed up the loading time for people in different places.

Using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) can make a big difference in how fast a website loads and how happy its users are with it. CDNs are networks of servers all over the world that work together to send website information to users from the server that is closest to them.

When you use a CDN, static files like images, CSS, JavaScript, and videos are stored on several computers in different parts of the world. When a user goes to your website, the CDN sends them the information from the server closest to them. This cuts down on latency and speeds up the loading time.

Here are a few well-known CDNs that businesses might want to think about:

  • Cloudflare has a free plan that includes some basic CDN features and other speed and security tools. Their global network speeds up the delivery of information and makes their website run better.
  • Akamai is one of the best CDN services in the world and has a strong infrastructure. They offer different CDN options that are made to fit the needs of different businesses. This helps improve the performance of websites and the user experience.
  • Amazon CloudFront  is one of the tools offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It gives businesses a scalable, secure CDN option that works all over the world and lets them send content quickly and easily.
  • Fastly is a modern CDN that focuses on delivering information as quickly as possible. Their edge cloud platform lets businesses send secure, personalized, and dynamic information to users all over the world.

By using a CDN, companies can improve the speed at which their websites load, reduce the load on their servers, and improve the overall user experience. Setting up a CDN requires configuring your DNS settings and combining it with your website. For help setting up and configuring your CDN, talk to your web developer or hosting provider.

4. Reduce HTTP Requests

Combine CSS and JavaScript files and get rid of tools you don’t need to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

By reducing the number of HTTP calls, a website can load much faster.

Here are some methods to minimize HTTP requests:

  • Add up files: You can cut down on the amount of CSS and JavaScript files by putting them all into one file. This cuts down on how many requests need to be made to get these tools.
  • Minify code: Remove extra white spaces, notes, and formatting from your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to make them smaller. This cuts down on the size of the file and the number of bytes that need to be sent, which makes the page load faster.
  • Use CSS sprites. Combine multiple pictures into a single sprite sheet and use CSS background positioning to show specific images. This makes it so the computer doesn’t have to ask for as many images.
  • Lazy load pictures: Use lazy loading, which only loads images when they are visible in the viewport. This method shortens the time it takes for a page to load for the first time by putting off loading pictures that aren’t visible on the screen.
  • Avoid putting CSS and JavaScript code straight into HTML. Instead, put CSS styles and JavaScript code in separate files. This makes caching work better and improves the speed as a whole.
    Choose which CSS and JavaScript tools to use: Include only the CSS and JavaScript tools that your site needs. Unused libraries add extra work and make more HTTP calls than they need to.
  • Use the browser’s caching feature by setting the right caching headers for static sites. This lets the browser save a copy of the item in its cache, which reduces the number of requests.
    By using these methods, businesses can lower the number of HTTP requests their websites make by a large amount. This makes websites load faster and run better.

5. Use Lazy Loading

Instead of loading everything at once, load information as users scroll down the page.

This will make the page load faster at first load.

For wordpress websites

  • WP Rocket .This caching and performance-optimization plugin comes with a function that allows images and videos to load slowly.
  • Lazy Load by WP Rocket  This is a separate plugin that offers WP Rocket’s lazy loading function.
  • Lazy Load. This plugin gives your WordPress site a lightweight way to load images, iframes, and movies slowly.

For NON-wordpress websites

For websites that aren’t made with WordPress, you can use JavaScript libraries or personally add code to your HTML to make lazy loading work.

Here’s an example of the code you can add:

				
					<img decoding="async" src="placeholder.jpg" data-src="image.jpg" class="lazyload" alt="Lazy Loaded Image">

The pictures that should be loaded slowly are marked with the lazyload class. The data-src attribute is used to set the real picture source, while the src attribute is set to a placeholder image by default. When the page is done loading, the JavaScript code replaces the src attribute with the real picture source.

Make sure to change the class and property names in the code so that they fit with the way your HTML is set up and how you name things.

By using these plugins and putting in the right code, businesses can quickly add lazy loading to their websites, which speeds up the time it takes to load pages and improves their overall performance.

6. Optimize Server Response Time

Make sure that your web hosting server is set up and adjusted correctly so that it can respond quickly.

For wordpress websites

Make sure that your web hosting server is set up and adjusted correctly so that it can respond quickly.

Follow these tips to speed up the server reaction time for WordPress sites:

  • Choose a web hosting service that you can trust. Choose a hosting company whose servers work well and are always up. Look for web hosts that specialize in hosting WordPress or that offer hosting settings that are optimized.
  • Turn on caching. Install a caching plugin like WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, or WP Super Cache to store static versions of your web pages and serve them to users. This will speed up the time it takes for your server to respond.
  • Optimize database. Clean up and improve your WordPress database by using a tool like WP Optimize or WP-DBManager. This helps lower the load on the server by getting rid of data that isn’t needed and making database queries run faster.
  • Minimize plugins. Limit how many plugins you put on your WordPress site, since each one adds more work to the server. Only keep the ones that are really important for your site to work.

For non-wordpress websites

Optimizing server reaction time for websites that aren’t built on WordPress means optimizing server configurations and using best practices.

Here are some general tips:

  • Optimize server settings. Check the settings and setups of your server to make sure they are optimized. This means making changes to server resources like memory limits and processing time so that website requests can be handled quickly.
  • Turn on caching. Use caching tools at the server level, like Varnish or Nginx FastCGI caching, to store and serve static content and lower server load.
  • Enable compression. Set up your server to allow file compression, like Gzip compression, to lower the amount of data that needs to be sent between the server and the client.
  • Code and resources must be optimized. Your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files will load faster and take up less space if you minify and compress them. You can automate this process with tools like Minify or Gulp.
  • Use a Content Delivery Network, or CDN. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to spread your website’s static content across various servers around the world. This will shorten the distance between the server and the user, which will speed up response times.

It’s important to remember that optimizing a server may require technical understanding and access to server settings. If you don’t know much about managing servers, it’s best to ask a web developer or hosting company for help with improving server response time.

7. Update and maintain your website on a regular basis

Keep your website’s software, plugins, and themes up-to-date so you can take advantage of new features and security patches.

For wordpress websites

  • Keep WordPress core, styles, and plugins up-to-date on your website. Check for changes often and install them to make sure your website is always running the most recent versions. This helps make the system more secure, stable, and fast.
  • Remove themes and apps you’re not using. Get rid of any themes or plugins that you aren’t using from your WordPress system. They can make a website less secure and slow it down.
  • Clean up your database. Use a tool like WP-Optimize or WP-Sweep to get rid of spam comments, post revisions, and other data that doesn’t belong in your WordPress database. This helps the service work faster and better.
  • Optimize images. Use a plugin like Smush or EWWW Image Optimizer to optimize and compress photos without losing quality. This makes files smaller and makes websites run faster.
  • Make regular back-ups of your website. Set up automatic backups using a trusted WordPress backup plugin, such as UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy. Keep backups off-site or in the cloud to make them safer.

For non-wordpress websites

For websites that aren’t made with WordPress,

  • Review and update the content often. Review and change the information on your website often to make sure it is still accurate and useful. Update information about products or services, contact information, and any material that is out of date.
  • Optimize images. Use tools like Photoshop or online image compression services to compress and optimize images to lower file sizes without losing quality. This helps the page load more quickly.
  • Test how well your website works. Check your website’s forms, links, and other engaging parts on a regular basis. Quickly fix any failed links or mistakes to improve the user experience.
  • Monitor how well your website works. Use tools like GTmetrix and Pingdom to keep an eye on your website’s speed and performance. Find any problems and fix them.
  • Back up your website regularly. Make regular copies of your website’s files and databases. Keep saves in a safe place, either on your own computer or in the cloud.

Keep in mind that your site’s smooth operation, security, and speed depend on regular updates and maintenance. It’s important to give these jobs their own time and resources so that your website stays optimized and easy to use.

FINAL THOUGHTS

By using these optimization techniques, putting best practices into place, and using the suggested tools, you can make your website load faster, give users a better experience, and move up in the search engine rankings.

Remember that having a website that loads quickly is a key part of getting and keeping visitors, making sales, and growing your online profile.

Get an optimized website ready for digital advertising and SEO right from the start.  Talk to us for a free consultation.

TERMS USED

What is Minification?

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO - Minification

Minification (also minimisation or minimization) is the process of removing all unnecessary characters from the source code of interpreted programming languages or markup languages without changing its functionality. 

These unnecessary characters usually include white space characters, new line characters, comments, and sometimes block delimiters, which are used to add readability to the code but are not required for it to execute. Minification reduces the size of the source code, making its transmission over a network (e.g. the Internet) more efficient.

Source: Wikipedia.org

What is A Browser CachE?

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO - Browser Caching

Pronounced “browser cash.”

A temporary storage area in memory or on disk that holds the most recently downloaded Web pages. As you jump from Web page to Web page, caching those pages in memory lets you quickly go back to a page without having to download it from the Web again. In order to ensure that the latest page is displayed, the browser compares the dates of the cached page with the current Web page.

If the Web page has not changed, the cached page is displayed immediately. If the Web page has changed, it is downloaded, displayed and cached.

Source: PC Magazine

What is A CDN?

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO - Content Delivery Network

A content delivery network (CDN) is a geographically distributed group of servers that caches content close to end users. 

A CDN allows for the quick transfer of assets needed for loading Internet content, including HTML pages, JavaScript files, stylesheets, images, and videos. The popularity of CDN services continues to grow, and today the majority of web traffic is served through CDNs, including traffic from major sites like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon.

A properly configured CDN may also help protect websites against some common malicious attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks.

Source: Cloudflare

what are http requests

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO -Reduce Http Requests

An HTTP request is made by a client, to a named host, which is located on a server. The aim of the request is to access a resource on the server. To make the request, the client uses components of a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), which includes the information needed to access the resource.

Source: IBM

what is Lazy Loading?

Lazy loading is a technique commonly used in computer programming and mostly in web design and development to defer initialization of an object until the point at which it is needed. It can contribute to efficiency in the program’s operation if properly and appropriately used.

Source: Wikipedia

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Table of Contents

Waiting for a slow-loading website to launch can be a significant turnoff for users in this age of immediate gratification. Additionally to having a poor effect on user experience, it may lower your search engine ranks. To ensure a fluid surfing experience, boost consumer happiness, and improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), it is essential to optimize the loading speed of your website.

Effect on user experience

To give users a satisfying experience, a website must load quickly, beautifully, and should be easy to navigate. Visitors anticipate quick interactions and immediate access to information. Increased bounce rates, where people leave your site in irritation, might result from slow-loading pages. You can enhance conversions and customer retention by increasing loading speed. You can also keep customers on your site longer and lower bounce rates.

Impact on the rankings in search engines

An important ranking element for search engines like Google is loading speed. Websites that load quickly have a higher chance of appearing higher in search results. This is because websites that provide a flawless user experience—of which page loading speed is a crucial component—are given precedence by search engines. Your visibility may suffer and it may be more difficult for customers to find you if your website is slow. You may raise your site’s search engine ranks and increase organic traffic by optimizing loading speed.

Optimization Tools You Can Use

It is best practice to run your website through the tools below even before you start to optimize it.  Check the results and see the issues that your website is facing.  Go through the action items one by one and start applying them to your website.  Run your website again in the tests after you update your website to see for any improvement on your loading times.  

For GTmetrix and Pingdom, try to change the server location from time to time.  Initially choose a server closer to your hosting datacenter, and eventually choose one further away.

  1. Google PageSpeed Insights Analyze the loading time of your website and get suggestions for improvement.
  2. GTmetrix Evaluate the performance of your website, spot any bottlenecks, and get useful suggestions for optimization.
  3. Pingdom Track the loading time of your website and spot performance problems with thorough data.
  4. WebPageTest Assess the performance and speed of your website from various places across the world.

Techniques for Optimization and Best Practices

1. Reduce File Sizes

Minimize your file sizes through minification and increase loading speed, compress images and enhance code.

FOR NON-WORDPRESS WEBSITES

Here are several software programs and applications that can help with code optimization, picture compression, and file size reduction:

  • Using the online image compression application TinyPNG, PNG and JPEG images can be compressed without noticeably sacrificing quality. It offers both a subscription plan for more usage and a free version with restrictions.
  • Online gaming platform Kraken.io a platform for cloud-based image optimization that enables image compression and optimization for faster loading. There are paid options for higher consumption and more advanced capabilities, as well as a free plan with constrained functionality.
  • ImageOptim is a desktop application for Mac users that optimizes image files without sacrificing quality. It supports a number of picture formats and is free to use.
  • Gzip is a piece of software that makes it possible to compress files, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, to make them smaller and load more quickly. It is extensively supported by web servers and is freely accessible.
  • UglifyJS is a JavaScript compression tool that minifies and optimizes JavaScript code to minimize file size. It may be integrated into build processes or used as a command-line tool. It is open-source and free.
  • A CSS minification tool called CSSNano optimizes CSS code, eliminates extra spaces, and shrinks file size. It may be used independently or combined with construction procedures. It is open-source and free.

FOR WordPress WEBSITES

There are various plugins that can assist WordPress users with compressing and optimizing pictures, HTML, JS, and CSS files.

Here are some well-known examples:

  •  WP Smush. With no loss in visual quality, this plugin automatically optimizes the photos on your WordPress website. Additionally, it provides options like bulk image optimization and sluggish loading. A pro version of the plugin with more features is available in addition to a free one with restrictions.
  • Autoptimize aggregates, minifies, and caches the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on your website to make them more efficient. Additionally, it can assist with picture optimization and integration with other caching plugins. It has a simple user interface and is a free plugin.
  • WP Rocket  is a feature-rich caching plugin with options for CSS, JavaScript, and HTML optimization. Additionally, it offers options for browser caching, limiting render-blocking resources, and lazy loading of images. The premium plugin WP Rocket has a one-time cost.
  • W3 Total Cache is a well-liked caching plugin that also provides tools for minifying and compressing CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files. It offers sophisticated caching options and connects with well-known content delivery networks (CDNs). The plugin has additional premium capabilities that can be used for a fee.

These plugins can help you tremendously with many elements of WordPress site optimization, like enhancing loading speed and reducing file sizes. In order to choose the plugin that best meets your requirements and tastes, it is advised that you carefully consider their features, compatibility with your website, and user reviews.

2. Activate Browser Caching

Use browser caching to locally store static files and speed up subsequent page loads.

FOR WordPress WEBSITES

  • W3 Total Cache offers options to enable browser caching in addition to other caching features. You can define expiration dates for various file kinds and it generates cache-control headers.
  • There is a straightforward toggle option in WP Rocket to enable browser caching. It automatically adds the relevant headers to the files on your website so that the user’s browser may cache them.

For non-wordpress websites

For websites that are not powered by WordPress, you can enable browser caching by manually enabling it in your server’s settings or by adding particular code to your website’s .htaccess file. The results of your test with GTmetrix and WebPageTest should provide comprehensive advise on how to use caching and improving speed. 

Please note that directly modifying the .htaccess file requires access to your server’s configuration. If you are unsure or uncomfortable making changes, it’s best to consult with your hosting provider or a professional developer for assistance.

To enable browser caching via the .htaccess file, you can add the following code snippets:

Apache servers

				
					bash
Copy code
# Enable Browser Caching
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
</IfModule>

The code above sets the expiration dates for different file types. You can modify the durations according to your requirements.

Nginx servers

				
					ruby
Copy code
# Enable Browser Caching
location ~* \.(css|js|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|svg|pdf|ico)$ {
    expires 1M;
    add_header Cache-Control "public";
}

3. Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Use CDNs to spread your website’s content across various servers around the world. This will cut down on latency and speed up the loading time for people in different places.

Using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) can make a big difference in how fast a website loads and how happy its users are with it. CDNs are networks of servers all over the world that work together to send website information to users from the server that is closest to them.

When you use a CDN, static files like images, CSS, JavaScript, and videos are stored on several computers in different parts of the world. When a user goes to your website, the CDN sends them the information from the server closest to them. This cuts down on latency and speeds up the loading time.

Here are a few well-known CDNs that businesses might want to think about:

  • Cloudflare has a free plan that includes some basic CDN features and other speed and security tools. Their global network speeds up the delivery of information and makes their website run better.
  • Akamai is one of the best CDN services in the world and has a strong infrastructure. They offer different CDN options that are made to fit the needs of different businesses. This helps improve the performance of websites and the user experience.
  • Amazon CloudFront  is one of the tools offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It gives businesses a scalable, secure CDN option that works all over the world and lets them send content quickly and easily.
  • Fastly is a modern CDN that focuses on delivering information as quickly as possible. Their edge cloud platform lets businesses send secure, personalized, and dynamic information to users all over the world.

By using a CDN, companies can improve the speed at which their websites load, reduce the load on their servers, and improve the overall user experience. Setting up a CDN requires configuring your DNS settings and combining it with your website. For help setting up and configuring your CDN, talk to your web developer or hosting provider.

4. Reduce HTTP Requests

Combine CSS and JavaScript files and get rid of tools you don’t need to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

By reducing the number of HTTP calls, a website can load much faster.

Here are some methods to minimize HTTP requests:

  • Add up files: You can cut down on the amount of CSS and JavaScript files by putting them all into one file. This cuts down on how many requests need to be made to get these tools.
  • Minify code: Remove extra white spaces, notes, and formatting from your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to make them smaller. This cuts down on the size of the file and the number of bytes that need to be sent, which makes the page load faster.
  • Use CSS sprites. Combine multiple pictures into a single sprite sheet and use CSS background positioning to show specific images. This makes it so the computer doesn’t have to ask for as many images.
  • Lazy load pictures: Use lazy loading, which only loads images when they are visible in the viewport. This method shortens the time it takes for a page to load for the first time by putting off loading pictures that aren’t visible on the screen.
  • Avoid putting CSS and JavaScript code straight into HTML. Instead, put CSS styles and JavaScript code in separate files. This makes caching work better and improves the speed as a whole.
    Choose which CSS and JavaScript tools to use: Include only the CSS and JavaScript tools that your site needs. Unused libraries add extra work and make more HTTP calls than they need to.
  • Use the browser’s caching feature by setting the right caching headers for static sites. This lets the browser save a copy of the item in its cache, which reduces the number of requests.
    By using these methods, businesses can lower the number of HTTP requests their websites make by a large amount. This makes websites load faster and run better.

5. Use Lazy Loading

Instead of loading everything at once, load information as users scroll down the page.

This will make the page load faster at first load.

For wordpress websites

  • WP Rocket .This caching and performance-optimization plugin comes with a function that allows images and videos to load slowly.
  • Lazy Load by WP Rocket  This is a separate plugin that offers WP Rocket’s lazy loading function.
  • Lazy Load. This plugin gives your WordPress site a lightweight way to load images, iframes, and movies slowly.

For NON-wordpress websites

For websites that aren’t made with WordPress, you can use JavaScript libraries or personally add code to your HTML to make lazy loading work.

Here’s an example of the code you can add:

				
					<img decoding="async" src="placeholder.jpg" data-src="image.jpg" class="lazyload" alt="Lazy Loaded Image">

The pictures that should be loaded slowly are marked with the lazyload class. The data-src attribute is used to set the real picture source, while the src attribute is set to a placeholder image by default. When the page is done loading, the JavaScript code replaces the src attribute with the real picture source.

Make sure to change the class and property names in the code so that they fit with the way your HTML is set up and how you name things.

By using these plugins and putting in the right code, businesses can quickly add lazy loading to their websites, which speeds up the time it takes to load pages and improves their overall performance.

6. Optimize Server Response Time

Make sure that your web hosting server is set up and adjusted correctly so that it can respond quickly.

For wordpress websites

Make sure that your web hosting server is set up and adjusted correctly so that it can respond quickly.

Follow these tips to speed up the server reaction time for WordPress sites:

  • Choose a web hosting service that you can trust. Choose a hosting company whose servers work well and are always up. Look for web hosts that specialize in hosting WordPress or that offer hosting settings that are optimized.
  • Turn on caching. Install a caching plugin like WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, or WP Super Cache to store static versions of your web pages and serve them to users. This will speed up the time it takes for your server to respond.
  • Optimize database. Clean up and improve your WordPress database by using a tool like WP Optimize or WP-DBManager. This helps lower the load on the server by getting rid of data that isn’t needed and making database queries run faster.
  • Minimize plugins. Limit how many plugins you put on your WordPress site, since each one adds more work to the server. Only keep the ones that are really important for your site to work.

For non-wordpress websites

Optimizing server reaction time for websites that aren’t built on WordPress means optimizing server configurations and using best practices.

Here are some general tips:

  • Optimize server settings. Check the settings and setups of your server to make sure they are optimized. This means making changes to server resources like memory limits and processing time so that website requests can be handled quickly.
  • Turn on caching. Use caching tools at the server level, like Varnish or Nginx FastCGI caching, to store and serve static content and lower server load.
  • Enable compression. Set up your server to allow file compression, like Gzip compression, to lower the amount of data that needs to be sent between the server and the client.
  • Code and resources must be optimized. Your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files will load faster and take up less space if you minify and compress them. You can automate this process with tools like Minify or Gulp.
  • Use a Content Delivery Network, or CDN. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to spread your website’s static content across various servers around the world. This will shorten the distance between the server and the user, which will speed up response times.

It’s important to remember that optimizing a server may require technical understanding and access to server settings. If you don’t know much about managing servers, it’s best to ask a web developer or hosting company for help with improving server response time.

7. Update and maintain your website on a regular basis

Keep your website’s software, plugins, and themes up-to-date so you can take advantage of new features and security patches.

For wordpress websites

  • Keep WordPress core, styles, and plugins up-to-date on your website. Check for changes often and install them to make sure your website is always running the most recent versions. This helps make the system more secure, stable, and fast.
  • Remove themes and apps you’re not using. Get rid of any themes or plugins that you aren’t using from your WordPress system. They can make a website less secure and slow it down.
  • Clean up your database. Use a tool like WP-Optimize or WP-Sweep to get rid of spam comments, post revisions, and other data that doesn’t belong in your WordPress database. This helps the service work faster and better.
  • Optimize images. Use a plugin like Smush or EWWW Image Optimizer to optimize and compress photos without losing quality. This makes files smaller and makes websites run faster.
  • Make regular back-ups of your website. Set up automatic backups using a trusted WordPress backup plugin, such as UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy. Keep backups off-site or in the cloud to make them safer.

For non-wordpress websites

For websites that aren’t made with WordPress,

  • Review and update the content often. Review and change the information on your website often to make sure it is still accurate and useful. Update information about products or services, contact information, and any material that is out of date.
  • Optimize images. Use tools like Photoshop or online image compression services to compress and optimize images to lower file sizes without losing quality. This helps the page load more quickly.
  • Test how well your website works. Check your website’s forms, links, and other engaging parts on a regular basis. Quickly fix any failed links or mistakes to improve the user experience.
  • Monitor how well your website works. Use tools like GTmetrix and Pingdom to keep an eye on your website’s speed and performance. Find any problems and fix them.
  • Back up your website regularly. Make regular copies of your website’s files and databases. Keep saves in a safe place, either on your own computer or in the cloud.

Keep in mind that your site’s smooth operation, security, and speed depend on regular updates and maintenance. It’s important to give these jobs their own time and resources so that your website stays optimized and easy to use.

FINAL THOUGHTS

By using these optimization techniques, putting best practices into place, and using the suggested tools, you can make your website load faster, give users a better experience, and move up in the search engine rankings.

Remember that having a website that loads quickly is a key part of getting and keeping visitors, making sales, and growing your online profile.

Get an optimized website ready for digital advertising and SEO right from the start.  Talk to us for a free consultation.

TERMS USED

What is Minification?

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO - Minification

Minification (also minimisation or minimization) is the process of removing all unnecessary characters from the source code of interpreted programming languages or markup languages without changing its functionality. 

These unnecessary characters usually include white space characters, new line characters, comments, and sometimes block delimiters, which are used to add readability to the code but are not required for it to execute. Minification reduces the size of the source code, making its transmission over a network (e.g. the Internet) more efficient.

Source: Wikipedia.org

What is A Browser CachE?

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO - Browser Caching

Pronounced “browser cash.”

A temporary storage area in memory or on disk that holds the most recently downloaded Web pages. As you jump from Web page to Web page, caching those pages in memory lets you quickly go back to a page without having to download it from the Web again. In order to ensure that the latest page is displayed, the browser compares the dates of the cached page with the current Web page.

If the Web page has not changed, the cached page is displayed immediately. If the Web page has changed, it is downloaded, displayed and cached.

Source: PC Magazine

What is A CDN?

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO - Content Delivery Network

A content delivery network (CDN) is a geographically distributed group of servers that caches content close to end users. 

A CDN allows for the quick transfer of assets needed for loading Internet content, including HTML pages, JavaScript files, stylesheets, images, and videos. The popularity of CDN services continues to grow, and today the majority of web traffic is served through CDNs, including traffic from major sites like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon.

A properly configured CDN may also help protect websites against some common malicious attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks.

Source: Cloudflare

what are http requests

Optimizing Loading Speed for Better User Experience and SEO -Reduce Http Requests

An HTTP request is made by a client, to a named host, which is located on a server. The aim of the request is to access a resource on the server. To make the request, the client uses components of a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), which includes the information needed to access the resource.

Source: IBM

what is Lazy Loading?

Lazy loading is a technique commonly used in computer programming and mostly in web design and development to defer initialization of an object until the point at which it is needed. It can contribute to efficiency in the program’s operation if properly and appropriately used.

Source: Wikipedia

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