9 Tips To Improve Website Speed and Performance

Importance of Website Speed: Did you know that 53% of mobile websites are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load?

In today’s digital landscape, waiting is not one of the things people like. Millions of web pages are available on the internet for the same information. Even if your page is designed with all elements properly balanced with captivating content and seamless navigation, it will load slower, and sadly, you will be abandoned. In today’s time, speed becomes non-negotiable when everything is just a click away and alternatives are available for almost everything.

Moreover, people don’t only abandon a website for the time being but also form a ‘negative perception’ of a company about its badly designed site, and negative word-of-mouth starts spreading. A slow loading time also makes up for a negative ranking factor because Google aims for under a half-second load time.

In a world where attention span is dwindling and competition is fierce, with many websites competing to attract, engage, and inform customers, being able to do it depends upon an aesthetic and compelling website and, most importantly, optimizing your speed performance. Combining all these elements can deliver an exceptional user experience.

Fast websites will have a lower bounce rate, higher conversion rates, higher ranking in organic searches, and an overall better user experience.

What slows down a website?

Several factors can slow down your website. Some of the most common factors could be the use of heavy CSS and JavaScript, a poor server or hosting plan, large images or videos, many widgets and plugins, resources from slower servers, traffic volume, older browsers, a slower network connection, etc.

Now that you know what could be causing the slowdown before you start to optimize the performance, you must measure the current performance of the website. A website has a variety of factors, and it is important to determine which factors are causing the slowdown. It helps to identify the root cause of the problem.

Apart from that, it also gives you an idea of where you started and what your goal is for the performance of your website.

Many free tools are available to measure your website’s performance. Some of the popular ones are  –

1. Google PageSpeed Insights,
2. GTmetrix,
3. Pingdom Website Speed,
4. WebPage Test,
5. Lighthouse,
6. YSlow, and
7. Varvy PageSpeed Optimization.

Some key metrics that need evaluation include –

• Largest Contentful Paint – measures how quickly the largest element on a page loads.
• First input delay – measures how quickly a page responds to a user input.
• Cumulative Layout Shift – measures the visual stability of a page’s elements.
• Time to First Byte – measures how quickly a page begins loading.
• DNS lookup speed – measures how quickly a page’s Domain Name Service (DNS) translates a domain name into an IP address.
• Time to interact – measures how quickly a user can interact with a page.

How to Improve Your Website Speed and Performance – 9 Tips

As described above, many websites can slacken your website. To correct all those vices on your website, there are many easy and reliable ways to try. Some of the most effective ways are –

1. Limit the number of HTTP requests –

Most websites make several HTTPS requests for their assets, such as images, scripts, videos, etc., on the page. Each of these requests needs a trip to and from the server hosting the resources. This increases the overall loading time of a website.

To minimize this load, you can identify through a speed test which of the resources is taking up the most time. Accordingly, you can replace or remove that particular resource as per your needs.

2. Switch to HTTP/2 –

We just discussed how sending multiple HTTPS requests can slow down a website and the possible solutions to it. Another way to deal with this issue without compromising much of your content would be to switch to HTTP/2.

HTTP/2 can send multiple files at the same time over the same connection. This considerably lowers the load time for a website. The way to do this will depend on the hosting platform you use.

3. Image Optimization –

Most of the time, images take the longest time to load fully. This is because they are larger than HTML, CSS, and other files. An effective way to deal with this without having to remove an image is to optimize the image. This will reduce its resolution and dimensions and compress the file size to make it load faster.

4. Reduce the number of plugins –

Plugins are reusable pieces of functionality, like a small app or tool that can be added to your website to add extra features. They help extend the capabilities of your website without you having to write all the codes by yourself.

But each plugin loads additional CSS and JavaScript or needs additional processing on the server for each page request. Hence, you should make sure to only use plugins that you need. All unnecessary plugins can be removed to optimize your website.

5. Use Browser Caching –

Whenever you visit a website, your browser saves a certain part of the website’s information, such as images, texts, etc., that does not change in a temporary storage location — a cache, which can be accessed faster. This significantly reduces the amount of data that servers need to transfer to the browser, especially for users who frequently visit a particular page.

6. Limit the use of external scripts –

Webpage elements that are loaded from somewhere else, such as commenting systems, call-to-action buttons, content management plugins, etc., need to be loaded each time a page loads. These can slow down a page or cause content jumping or layout shifting, i.e., not loading the page all at once. This mostly happens with mobile phone users. The use of these elements can be reduced to deal with this problem.

7. Limit redirect usage –

A redirect is when visitors to one page are forwarded to another webpage. Redirects can considerably slow down the loading time of a page. Sometimes redirects are unavoidable but should be avoided whenever possible.

8. Minify CSS and JavaScript files –

Minifying means optimizing the size of JavaScript and CSS files by removing anything that a computer doesn’t need to understand and carry out the code, including code comments, whitespace, and other unnecessary elements. This makes CSS and JavaScript files smaller, and they load faster in the browser. Though it will not make any big change as such, it can be used for optimum efficiency.

9. Choose the right hosting service plan –

Hosting refers to the process of storing, serving, and managing files, data, and content for a website on a server connected to the Internet. There are different packages offered by hosting providers according to the needs and budgets of the owners. Some common hosting plans are:

• Shared –The cheapest hosting option, but one has to share the server’s resources with other customers.
• VPS – A virtual private server is faster than a shared host but uses multiple machines.
• Dedicated –It is very expensive but provides exclusive access to an entire physical server to a single client.
• Cloud hosting – It uses a network of interconnected virtual servers to distribute resources.

Also Read Shared vs. VPS vs. Cloud Hosting | What to Choose?

Hosting servers is very important because even a finely designed website will load slowly if its origin server responds slowly. Website owners should choose the right server that can give them the desired speed and performance.

Improving a website’s performance can be difficult, especially considering that many times, a lot of factors such as servers, networks, connectivity, and other resources can be out of our reach.

This process of optimization does not need to be the same for everyone. Every website has some elements responsible for slowing it down. Identifying those elements and working on them to reach a satisfactory speed is needed. But by following the tips mentioned above, you can streamline your website’s overall performance. Improved performance of your website can lead to user satisfaction, higher organic ranking in search results, and ultimately a better online presence.

Also read Search Engine Optimization: What is SEO and How it Can Help Your Business?