Simple Ways To Speed Up Website Loading Time

Simple Ways To Speed Up Website Loading Time

Given how internet users are impatient, there perhaps isn’t a single webmaster who doesn’t want to speed up website loading time.

Google along with other major search engines use web page loading time to determine your site’s search engine rank, so it is urgent to have a fast-loading site.

Regardless of how attractive it is, a slow-loading site will turn away visitors. Studies indicate not only fast-loading pages increase search engine ranking, but 40% of visitors may click off if the page doesn’t load within 3 seconds. An extra second or two could lower conversion rate by 7%.

What can you do to speed-up website loading time, raise your bottom dollar and keep customers happy?

Keep It SimpleKeep It Simple

Image source: Sam Stratton

It helps to know the basics of increasing page loading times. 80% of load time has to do with HTTP requests like CSS style sheets and scripts.

Now, you are likely wondering how do you go about doing that.

Keep it simple. Pages load faster when there are only one or two images and plain text.

Combine. If you need more complex components, merge scripts into a single script and CSS into a single style sheet. Try to keep plug-ins to a minimum. Adding too many plug-ins not only decrease load time, but it will increase the chances for page crashes and cause a security risk.

The Foundation

The Foundation Image source: Jerio

You should determine how your site measures up in terms of speed before you begin making any improvements. Be aware the more HTTP requests made to the server, the longer it will take the page to load.

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, which determines how content is distributed.

To get an idea of how fast your site loads, use Yahoo!Yslow and Google Page Speed. These sites also have extensions and an easy-to-use interface with instructions in case you need help using the tools.

Another tool you can use to check page speed is GTmetrix, which implements Google Page Speed and Yslow along with offering helpful hints to improve your site speed.

It analyzes your site under each platform and gives results side by side, so you can compare. It has helpful tips for WordPress sites and you can also download the tips in a PDF document.

Compress Files and Scripts

Compress Files and Scripts Image source: Rich Tabor

When you activate compression of files and resources, it greatly reduces site load time. You can do this with the free Gzip program to decrease the bytes being transmitted over the page. Some servers such as Apache have this built in for Java, HTML, and CSS.

You will also need to configure your site content for compression.

The first thing to do is to be consistent with CSS and HTML codes. This is done by:

  • Keeping the CSS value pairs in a common sense manner like alphabetical order and applying the same to HTML attributes
  • Staying consistent with a case using mainly lower case
  • Making certain you stay consistent with HTML attribute quotes for tags
  • Minimize Java and CSS by getting rid of unneeded line breaks and extra page space, which helps make parsing faster

Use CDN to Spread Content across Servers

Use CDN to Spread Content across Servers Image source: Roy Barber

Site speed also relies on the location of the user so you will want to spread content implementing a content delivery network, or CDN.

If you are wondering what a CDN is, it is a group of servers located in different places all over the world. A CDN can send files faster to an area near the server location, decrease file size and send them with no cookies.

For instance, a CDN server could have a location in New York, China or Russia. When a user accesses your site, the nearest server to their location sends the content. Someone who lives in Maine or New Mexico may get site access through New York.

Though a CDN only requires a simple code add-on, it could be costly. Although most internet providers have their own CDN, it is best to find one with a dedication to CDN.

Leverage the Browser Cache

Leverage the Browser Cache Image source: Kevin Mandeville

A browser web cache temporarily stores copies of web pages, elements like HTML and images which decreases load time. Rather than having to load elements from the server every time a web page is requested, it pulls the elements from the web cache.

If the header is outdated, it tells the browser whether or not to get elements from the source or from the cache.

Setting an expiration date for a source header to expire like for JEG image will tell the browser to hold the image in the web cache so when a visitor comes back, the page will pull the image from there to load the site faster.

Activate HTTP Keep-Alive Response Header

Activate HTTP Keep-Alive Response Header Image source: Patryk Pawlikowski

HTTP request operates in a simple manner: they take a file, submit, and close. Which sounds easy, but not often fast.

A trick called stay-alive says the browser and server make an agreement to grab and transmit files with the same connection. What this means is the server will keep the connection alive as long as you are on the site as opposed to opening the site with each new HTTP request.

This prevents your processor, memory, and network from getting overworked.

In Summary

Though the technology of websites makes them look cooler, it could slow down site loading times. This means whenever you want to insert a new code, media, image, or script, you need to ask yourself: how will it impact my site speed?

It is not cost-efficient to make site speed slow just to have the latest innovations on your site since this could cause a loss of revenue.

It is better to not risk using the latest code or media until it proves to be a money-maker. Think of yourself as a customer and ask yourself what you would like to see when you visit a page. What would impress you about a site? In many cases, you have only a few seconds to make a good impression.

Credit for featured image: James Boast

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