How to improve your website speed and performance?

Speed is everything in today’s scenario. Especially in the digital world where a new competitor is showing up every day, speed is probably the top-notch factor. Irrespective of how complex or great your site looks, your viewers or customers will immediately bounce back if it takes forever to load.

It can become intimidating if you don’t pay attention to these factors. Since it can directly have an effect on the performance of your website, it is better that you start looking for the problems and find solutions. So, today we will have a look into the ways to improve your website speed. This will not only ensure great site performance but also offer the best user experience.

However, before checking out the techniques for improving your website speed and performance, we will briefly have a look into the reasons why page speed is considered a vital factor.

What is the importance of page speed?

Much research and studies have been done to find the exact time a user waits for a website to load. However, it has been observed that users roughly wait from 0.3 to 3 seconds. In case websites take much longer than three seconds to provide information to its user, they will close the window and might abandon the site forever.

Fast websites will always have lower bounce rates, better organic ranking, and higher conversion, and obviously, they will be capable of providing an unmatched user experience. The reality is that when you create a slow website, it will not only hurt your investment but can also directly affect your brand reputation.

On the other hand, when you create a website with a faster loading speed, it will be able to retain users, have more traffic, and increase conversion. So, if you don’t want to lose your valuable customers, you should always pay attention to every single and tiny aspect of your website that improves the speed.

What are the significant factors affecting site speed?

While several factors can be working behind website lag, the following are some of the most common ones. Your website might or might not be affected by all of these or a few of these. But it is always a must for every website owner to check the details and try making every customization to improve website speed.

• Choosing a bad hosting plan or poor server.
• Heavily used JavaScript and CSS.
• Using larger sizes of images.
• A lot of plug-ins and widgets use.
• Not focusing on browser cache.
• Too much traffic.
• Linking with other sources that have slow servers.
• Old browsers.
• Using a bad network connection on your mobile device.

These are some of the most common reasons that can directly affect page speed. So you definitely have got an idea about the way to improve the speed. So before we start improving the website performance and user experience, you need to find out the loading time of your website.

How to check site performance?

Before you start making changes to your website, you need to measure its performance initially. Measuring these particular metrics will help you to check website performance. You can compare it with other websites to find out where exactly you’re going wrong.

While there are several metrics you should measure as an owner of your website, we will initially ask you to focus on cumulative layout shift, first input delay, and largest contentful paint. According to Google’s core Web vitals, these are the three critical metrics.

You can find a range of solutions available on the market that can help you to make website performance tests and check the core web vital metrics. One of the most common tools is PageSpeed insights. 

You must keep in mind that even when results show that it is under three seconds, there is still enough room to improve your website’s performance. When your website starts becoming popular, it is a must that you optimize its loading time. Cutting a few milliseconds to more extent can significantly impact its performance.

How to improve your website speed?

Being a website owner, you must know that there is no miracle or magic behind improving the loading time of your website. Some methods might give you better luck based on how the website is set up. 

However, if you want to make sure that your website loads as fast as possible, it is better to implement optimization techniques. So following are some of the best practices you can choose to improve the performance of your new website.

Reduce HTTP requests 

The HTTP request is one of the most important things you should pay attention to. It is used by different web browsers to fetch several portions of pages like scripts, stylesheets, and images from the web server. Every request that uses HTTP/1.1 will consist of overhead to establish a connection between the remote web server and browser.

Moreover, most browsers have limits on parallel network requests. So, if there are several requests in the line, chances are that some of them might be blocked in case the line is long. So, the initial step should be eliminating unnecessary requests.

Find out your minimum render time needed for the website. Check it out and choose to load only the required external sources. It is better if you remove unnecessary images, fonts, stylesheets, JavaScript files, and a lot more. In case you are using a CMS like WordPress for your website, it would be better if you remove all the unnecessary plug-ins that are added to your website.

Now, when you have actually removed everything that is possible, it is beneficial to optimize the left aspects. Check out the JavaScript and CSS files and compress them. This will have a direct impact on the website speed. Using the tools foresight performance tests, you will be able to identify and monitor HTTP requests and the resources.

Switch to HTTP/2 

I have already mentioned the overhead for sending requests over HTTP/1.1. So, let us talk about it. HTTP is a protocol that most browsers use for communicating with remote web servers. Your website’s HTML and several other resources like JavaScript, stylesheets, and image files are generally transferred by making use of this protocol.

One of the best ways of solving problems is by reducing requests. In every case, this is a great approach. This makes sure that you need fewer resources for website rendering, and it is always going to help you in improving the page loading time. However, there is yet another way of avoiding overhead.

You can also choose to switch to HTTP/2. However, if you want to know the details of the way to change, it will be provided by the hosting service provider. HTTP/2 has a range of benefits over HTTP/1.1. Of the many advantages, one of the most common ones is the ability to send multiple files simultaneously within the same connection. It is incredibly beneficial in avoiding overhead for multiple requests.

Image size optimization 

There are several websites that make heavy use of graphics. It can slow the website’s performance if the images are not correctly compressed or you are using high-resolution pictures. For example, there are many websites that use images with 3X resolution. The reason is that it will be displayed properly on high-resolution displays like retina screens.

However, when the users are not using such displays, it is actually resulting in wasting bandwidth and increasing your website loading time. Especially if they are using a slow data connection, it will take them forever to load. Make sure that you properly use the images.

So, when you specify a range of image sizes, it will help the browser choose the proper size based on the user’s screen resolution. When you know that you are selecting the correct resolution for all the devices, it is now time that you do image size optimization. 

Do not forget to use the right type of file as well. You can use JPEG type for images and PNG for graphics.

Choose CDN or content delivery network 

Oftentimes it becomes tricky to serve static files. As it is not the prime focus of 99% of websites, it is better when you outsource this. Luckily, you will find a range of services designed especially for content delivery networks.

CDN can help to optimize static file delivery like JavaScript, fonts, CSS, and images to visitors. Apart from this, setting it is also straightforward. CDN generally makes use of geographically distributed surveys. This also means that the server which is closest to the visitor will serve the files.

So, it generally affects the loading time for images which will remain the same irrespective of where the user is choosing to connect. Generally, serving static files from the own server increases loading time. It is always better when you use a tool for monitoring the performance of all the files hosted on CDN.

Focus on writing mobile-first code 

There is no doubt about the fact that most users use their mobile devices. You can check about your users using a different website analytics tool like Google Analytics. 

Most commonly, developers choose to test and write websites on desktop devices and then optimize the website for other mobile devices. This can be a tedious and painful process based on your choices made while writing the website. So, it is always better to test using your mobile devices directly. This way, you will focus on writing mobile-first codes. It will, by default, improve the experience for mobile users.

It is a simple process when you start adjusting websites for different desktop devices. You can also choose to improve the experience for a range of devices but keep in mind the mobile user experience.

Reduce time to first byte

TTFB, or Time To The First Byte, is defined as the time required for the browser to receive its first data bite from the server. It is a concern from the side of the server, but it has a crucial role to play in the overall website performance. So, you must pay attention to improving it.

Now some of the prime aspects which are under control when it is to the TTFB is the server’s processing time. Therefore, you can choose some effective tips provided by Google for TTFB improvement.

• You can choose to optimize the Application logic of your server to prepare faster pages. When you use a server framework, you will be provided with recommendations on the way to do this.

• Pay attention to optimizing the server quality database to a faster database system.

• Choose to upgrade server hardware with more memory or a CPU. 

Generally, when the TTFB is below 200MS, it is considered a great choice. Something between 200MS to 500MS is also considered okay. Generally, you need to investigate if the TTFB is always higher than 600MS. Choosing a website tool that helps to monitor core web vital metrics can be exceptionally advantageous.

Choose a hosting server plan correctly

This is tied with the previous point of the way to minimize TTFB. When you use a shared web hosting provider, there are always chances of experiencing the super performance. It is better if you use managed service by upgrading your hosting plan when you’re using WordPress. This is especially recommended as it ensures high performance and stable hosting.

• Dedicated servers: As we all know that dedicated servers are often the most expensive ones among the other service plans. Here you rent the entire machine that can be configured according to your desires.

• VPS: VPS or virtual private server is mostly faster compared to a shared host. However, it uses multiple machines rather than one machine.

• Shared hosting: Just as the way it sounds, it is the cheapest hosting option available. This way, you can share resources with other customers on the server.

• Serverless: It is probably one of the options, but we have not heard about most. Serverless provides exceptional scalability by reducing the cost to a massive extent.

Choose Gzip compression 

It is always better when you choose to Gzip compression of the HTTP server. Using this method can significantly minimize the size of HTTP requests from a particular file type. It is mostly used for textual responses. However, this is incredibly beneficial as it can reduce the website loading time along with saving bandwidth.

Combine and minimize HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files

As I have already mentioned earlier, it is always better when you try loading both CSS and JS within a single request. This can be easily accomplished by combining and minimizing different CSS and JS files into one bundle.

Generally, browsers have limited network requests. So, if there is a need for three requests for loading, it will be faster compared to loading from 30 different resources. Developers can easily make use of various tools that provide the convenience of bundling multiple files during website development. It can only improve the performance of the website. Combining files exactly means that all your files are they way it is in one bundle.

You can choose to minify as it can easily optimize CSS and JavaScript files by getting rid of symbols. You can also choose to shorten the symbols. Its output is almost equal, but it is not readable by humans. However, browsers don’t find it problematic to read it, and smaller files result in improved loading time.

Try avoiding landing page redirect

In the past, there were many people who might have recommended you create a mobile-friendly version of your website. It can keep your users and search engines happy. In order to follow such a work approach, you might need to implement a redirect to the landing page. It will send mobile users directly to the original version of your website and sweet things up.

However, as mobile devices have more users recently compared to desktop browsers, creating multiple website versions is absolutely not required. Rather than that, you can create mobile-friendly designs which will be browsed easily in different resolutions.

Since it is critical, it is always better when you avoid redirects from your website. Every redirect that you create is another hoop that users need to jump through. Reducing the redirect can directly improve the website loading time.

Website caching 

Caching is the procedure of saving files in a temporary location. It is also known as a cache which is accessed faster. They have tons of advantages of enabling browser caching, but it can also increase the loading time, improve bandwidth consumption, and reduce latency and other workloads on the server. 

Check and fix the broken URLs 

Apart from page performance or search engine optimization, broken URLs can have a direct negative impact on your website. When you have too many broken links on the website, it can prevent the search engine bots from indexing pages and, therefore, to your visitors. 

Moreover, broken links also provide users with an impression that the website is not maintained properly. It can increase your website’s bounce rate and slow down your pages.

So, it is always recommended that you make a thorough check of your website by running a site optimization test with different tools and check out the broken links. You can choose to fix them manually or get rid of them as soon as possible.

Ensure the best website performance

Improving your website by proper optimization might seem daunting. As you can already see that there can be a lot of reasons that can reduce the loading time, it is something that will always keep the website owners or marketers on their toes. However, you always have to make sure you choose the best techniques and tips to get rid of unused things and improve the website speed. 

However, if you have just taken your first step in creating a website or business, it can become difficult for you even when tips are provided. In such a time, you can choose an expert to improve your website speed. However, do not forget to take site performance tests using different tools to understand the lagging and how to improve them.

Even when you have been in the business for a long time and have to keep an eye on the core working, it is better that you choose an expert or agency. With their help, you can greatly improve the site’s performance. Since website speed is directly associated with user experience, it is advisable not to take it for granted.

Frequently Asked Questions