Websites of all types should load as fast as possible – a study revealed that conversions happen the most on pages that take between zero and two seconds to load.
On the contrary, slow loading websites can harm user experience and lead to increased bounce rates. Consequently, they will struggle to appear on Google’s first page, as site speed is one of the search engine’s ranking factors.
With that in
mind, having first-class performance is vital for a site’s growth. For that
reason, website developers constantly work to ensure their website speed
optimization efforts pay off.
In this post,
you’ll learn eight steps for improving a site’s performance. Let’s get started.
1.
Reduce Server Response Time
Server response
time measures how quickly website hosting servers respond to a request.
It uses the Time
To First Byte (TTFB) to measure it, indicating how many seconds until users’
browsers receive the first byte in response to their requests. The faster a web
server is, the lower its TTFB will be.
A study shows that anything under 217 ms is
great to ensure a lightning-fast website speed. It also reveals that this TTFB
would put a website in the top 10% best sites.
Since the
response time depends heavily on the web servers’ configuration, one of the
easiest ways of getting excellent performance is choosing a reliable web
hosting provider.
If you don’t know
where to start your research, consider using Hostinger. Its global speed average is 136 ms, making it one
of the fastest web hosts in the market.
2.
Use a Content Delivery Network
A Content
Delivery Network is a group of globally distributed proxy servers and their
data centers. It enables users to store their website’s static data on
different servers in numerous geographical locations.
Server locations
affect how fast a request travels from one place to another. Consequently,
users around the world may experience different page load times on the same web
page.
Installing a CDN
is an excellent solution to reduce latency. It helps ensure incredible page
speed for a site’s target audience wherever they may be.
Some of the best CDN services are offered by Cloudflare and Sucuri Security. Signing up for them, users will also get caching plugins to boost their site speed.
3.
Use Caching Tools
Caching
enables web browsers to retrieve a website’s information from an intermediary
location faster. Therefore, they won’t have to send an HTTP request every time
users want to access a specific website.
If you use
WordPress, W3 Total Cache and WP
Super Cache are great caching plugins to reduce page load time.
The former is a
better option for advanced users, as it comes with multiple settings to minify
CSS and JavaScript files, while the latter is more beginner-friendly.
Comparably, both are easy to integrate with a CDN.
Caching tools
work perfectly for high-traffic websites, such as streaming and eCommerce
sites.
4.
Minimize HTTP Requests
HTTP requests
refer to any query that users make to a site’s web servers, enabling users to
access a website’s resources. For example, using a site’s search bar for
reaching a product page will trigger the user’s browser to send HTTP requests.
Too many HTTP
requests can make web servers overwhelmed, especially when the destination URL
contains many files, including multimedia and redundant code.
For that reason,
site owners need to reduce the number of HTTP requests to maintain fast page
load time.
Removing
unnecessary visual elements can be a significant first step for minimizing HTTP
requests. For this, site owners may start by exploring their site’s media
files. Chances are high that they will find unemployed images and videos.
Next up, review
installed themes and plugins as they can double the page loads if poorly coded.
Query
Monitor is among the best tools to locate less effective website
extensions so that users will be more confident in removing them.
5.
Reduce File Size
Reducing file
size is another must-do to minimize HTTP requests. Like bad coding in themes
and plugins, redundant data in a web page’s code can add to HTTP requests. To
solve this, site owners should learn to minify their code.
Code minification
involves removing extra characters, such as comments and breaks, in a page’s
source code and markup. This process will result in a more compact CSS and
JavaScript file size. Hence, improving the site’s loading time and user
experience.
MinifyCode is an excellent example of a beginner-friendly code
minification tool.
With this tool, all users need to do is click through the links on the
navigation bar. It will then display a text editor, where users can copy and
paste their code – click Minify to
commence the action.
6.
Optimize Images
Although images bring SEO benefits, they are often the
biggest culprits of making a web page heavy. However, thanks to image
optimization practices, site owners can display beautiful photos in a way that
doesn’t harm their site’s performance.
Among the most
popular ways to optimize images is to compress them before uploading. With lossless compression tools, like Kraken.io,
site owners can reduce image size without losing quality.
Alternatively, installing a plugin like Smush enables WordPress users to automatically compress their images as they upload them.
7.
Keep Your Systems Up to Date
It’s no secret
that updates bring performance and security improvements. Therefore, there’s no
reason for postponing them.
Click the Update button
every time your site’s content management system releases a newer platform
version. If you use WordPress, be sure to use the latest CMS version, WordPress 5.8.
On top of that,
site owners should also keep an eye on PHP
updates. PHP versions before 7.3 no longer receive updates. Therefore, it’s recommended to use
PHP 7.4 or greater.
A study also found that a website using PHP version 7.X can handle more than twice
the requests of the 5.X versions. Regarding latency, the former also performs
way better.
8.
Utilize Accelerated Mobile Pages
Mobile devices
account for 54.8% of global website traffic. Meanwhile,
the average page load time for web pages on mobile is 27.3
seconds.
If a website can
outperform others in the same niche, it will yield a more superior mobile UX
and increase its chance to stand out from the competition.
To boost website
speed on mobile devices, a group of developers launched an open-source project
called Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMP helps a web page load instantly as Google AMP Cache automatically stores
the page’s information for faster retrieval on Google Search.
Mobile web pages
on AMP formats are a deconstructed version of the desktop pages. AMP throws
away any extras, making a web page as minimalist as possible. To distinguish an
AMP-optimized page, Google will show a small lightning bolt icon on users’
mobile browsers.
Conclusion
There are several page speed optimization practices
you can adopt to maximize site performance. Let’s have a short recap of what
you’ve learned in this article:
- Reduce
server response time. Opt for a web hosting service that guarantees a
response time under 200 ms.
- Use a
Content Delivery Network. It helps reduce latency so that a website can reach its
target audience wherever they are.
- Use
caching tools. Both browser and server caches can help improve a site’s page
loading time, especially for high-traffic websites.
- Minimize
HTTP requests. Too many requests can slow a website down. Thus, users need to
delete unused images from their site’s media files and uninstall poorly
coded third-party software.
- Reduce
file size. This process involves minifying a web page’s code and scripts to
reduce its load time.
- Optimize
images.
Some alternatives for image optimization are using a lossless compression
tool or an automated compression plugin.
- Keep your
systems up to date. Check for updates for the website’s CMS, PHP version,
plugins, and themes.
- Utilize Accelerated Mobile Pages. Improve a site’s speed
on mobile devices.
We hope this tutorial helps you optimize your
website’s speed to its maximum potential. Additionally, keep in mind that page
speed optimization is an ongoing process. Therefore, check your overall
performance regularly.
Good luck!
