Know How to improve a Website’s Load Time

• Do you want to make your website fast?

• Do you want to improve your website’s performance?

Here are a few ways to improve your website’s performance:

Minimize HTTP Requests (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

According to a study, 80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end in downloading all the components of a page, such as:

• Images,

• Style sheets,

• Scripts,

• Flash, etc.

Hence, by reducing the total number of components, you can reduce the number of HTTP requests required to render the page.

Tips:

• Combine multiple scripts into a single script.

• Combine all CSS into a single style sheet.

• Remove unnecessary images.

• Limit the number of files that load.

• Combine your background images into a single image and use CSS background.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

According to Webopedia, a content delivery network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers (network) that deliver web pages and other web content to a user based on the geographic locations of the user, the origin of the web page and a content delivery server.

So, if you want to speed up your website, deploy your content across multiple servers.

Tips:

• Disperse your static content.

• Use CDN technique to serve your customers.

Benefits:

• Improves page load speed

• Improves customer’s experience

• Handles high traffic loads

• Blocks spammers

• Secures your applications

• Localises coverage without the cost

Fact:

Studies show that a single second delay causes a 7% drop in conversions, an 11% drop in page views and a 16% drop in customer satisfaction.

Use Gzip

According to Varvy, Gzip is a standard practice of compressing files (making them smaller) for faster network transfers. Compression allows your web server to provide smaller file sizes, which load faster for your website users.

“Gzip is the most popular and effective compression method”.

Tips:

• Compression can be enabled via webserver configuration.

• Enable compression via .htaccess.

• PDF files should not be gzipped.

• Compression of your HTML and CSS files with gzip saves around 50% to 70% of the file size.

• Use https://checkgzipcompression.com/ to check compression.

Image optimisation

Images occupy a significant amount of visual space, as well as slows a website’s loading speed. That is why, it is important to optimise images for better performance.

Image optimization requires careful analysis of many aspects, such as:

• Format capabilities,

• Content of encoded data,

• Quality, pixel dimensions, and more.

Tips:

• Eliminate unnecessary image resources

• Take advantage of CSS3 effects wherever possible

• Use web fonts instead of encoding text in images

• If possible, use vector images because they are ideal for images that consist of geometric shapes.

Bonus tips:

• Try to eliminate unnecessary web resources.
• Measure the performance of each asset: its value as well as technical performance.
• Use the most effective compression techniques and algorithms.
• Use Webfonts that are critical to a good design, UX, and performance.

So, use the above mentioned holistic ways and approaches to improve performance of your website.