Web performance optimization or website optimization is the field of knowledge about increasing the loading speed of your web pages and minimizing the time a page takes in getting downloaded and displayed on the user’s web browser. With the average internet speed increasing globally, it is the requirement for website administrators and webmasters to consider the time it takes for websites to render for the visitor.
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There are a lot of factors that play a vital role in affecting the speed of page load. Some aspects which can affect the speed of page load include browser/server cache, image optimization, and encryption (for example SSL), etc.
What is Website Performance Optimization?
Website performance optimization refers to the process of improving a website’s speed, efficiency, and overall performance. This includes techniques and strategies such as reducing page load times, optimizing images and code, leveraging caching and compression, and minimizing HTTP requests.
Related: Improving Website Performance: Tips for Faster Load Times and Improved User Experience
Techniques & Tools for Website Performance Optimization
Here’re the tips that you can use for optimization your website’s performance:
1. Measure website performance
Before optimizing your website, you need to understand how fast your website currently is. Several tools can be used to measure website performance, including Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, Pingdom, and WebPageTest.
These tools will provide you with valuable information on the performance of your website, including load time, page size, and requests.
2. Optimize images
Large images can significantly slow down your website. Optimizing images can help reduce the size of the images, which in turn, reduces the load time of the website. You can optimize images by reducing their size or compressing them.
You can use image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, or online tools like TinyPNG to compress your images.
3. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
Minifying your website’s CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files can help reduce their file size, resulting in faster load times. Minification removes unnecessary characters from the code, such as white spaces and comments, without changing the functionality of the code.
You can use tools like UglifyJS or Closure Compiler to minify JavaScript, CSS Minifier to minify CSS, and HTML Minifier to minify HTML.
4. Leverage browser caching
Leveraging browser caching involves instructing the user’s browser to store static files, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, on their computer. This reduces the number of HTTP requests required to load the website, resulting in faster load times for subsequent visits. You can add caching headers to your website’s HTTP response, specifying how long the browser should store the files.
You can also use a content delivery network (CDN) to deliver static files from a closer location to the user.
5. Enable compression
Compressing your website’s resources can help reduce the amount of data sent over the network, resulting in faster load times. You can use gzip compression, which compresses your website’s resources before sending them over the network.
Most web servers, including Apache and Nginx, support gzip compression.
6. Minimize HTTP requests
Reducing the number of HTTP requests required to load a web page can help improve website performance. You can minimize HTTP requests by combining multiple CSS and JavaScript files into a single file.
You can also use image sprites to reduce the number of image requests.
7. Use a content delivery network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers that deliver web pages and other content to users based on their geographic location. A CDN can help improve website performance by reducing the time it takes for content to reach the user’s browser.
CDNs also help reduce the load on your web server, resulting in faster load times.
8. Use asynchronous loading for JavaScript and CSS
Asynchronous loading allows your website’s resources to load simultaneously, reducing the overall load time of the website.
You can use the async and defer attributes for JavaScript and the media attribute for CSS to load these resources asynchronously.
9. Optimize server response time
Server response time refers to the amount of time it takes for the web server to respond to a request. A slow server response time can significantly slow down your website. You can optimize server response time by using a faster web server or upgrading your hosting plan.
You can also reduce the amount of code and database queries required to generate a web page.
10. Remove unnecessary plugins and scripts
Plugins and scripts can add functionality to your website, but they can also slow down your website if they are not necessary. Remove any plugins or scripts that are not essential to the website’s functionality.
You can also replace plugins with lightweight alternatives or code the functionality yourself.
Also read: Top 10 SEO Plugins for WordPress Website
11. Use a responsive design
A responsive design ensures that your website is optimized for all devices, including desktops, tablets, and mobile phones. A responsive design can help improve website performance by reducing the amount of data sent to the user’s device and by providing a better user experience.
You can use CSS media queries to adjust the layout and design of your website based on the user’s device.
12. Optimize your database
A poorly optimized database can significantly slow down your website. You can optimize your database by removing unnecessary data, reducing the size of your database tables, and using indexes.
You can also use a caching plugin to reduce the number of database queries required to generate a web page.
13. Use lazy loading for images and videos
Lazy loading is a technique that delays the loading of images and videos until they are needed. This can help reduce the initial load time of your website, especially for pages with many images and videos.
You can use lazy loading plugins or code this functionality yourself.
14. Monitor website performance
Website performance can change over time, so it’s important to monitor your website’s performance regularly. You can use tools like Google Analytics or Pingdom to monitor your website’s performance.
Monitoring website performance can help identify performance issues and help you make the necessary optimizations to improve website performance.
Also read: How to Choose the Right Content Management System (CMS) for Your Website
Tools to Measure Your Webiste Performance
You can use online tools or portals to measure your websites performance. Some popular sites are:
Techniques to Boost Your Website Performance (Apache Servers Only)
Let’s discuss the techniques that you can use to boost your website performance for Apache Server.
1. Set Expire Headers in .htaccess
Expires headers tell the browser whether they should request a specific file from the server or whether they should grab it from the browser’s cache.
The whole idea behind Expires Headers is not only to reduce the load of downloads from the server but rather to reduce the number of HTTP requests for the server.
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
# Enable expirations
ExpiresActive On
# Default directive
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month"
# My favicon
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
# Images
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
# CSS
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
# Javascript
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 year"
</IfModule>2. Enable gzip compression
Reduce the size of files sent from your server to increase the speed to which they are transferred to the browser.
When a user hits your website a call is made to your server to deliver the requested files. The bigger these files are the longer it’s going to take for them to get to your browser and appear on the screen.
Gzip compresses your webpages and style sheets before sending them over to the browser. This drastically reduces transfer time since the files are much smaller.
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
# Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
</IfModule>3. Image Compression
Reduce the load times of pages by loading appropriately sized images.
If you don’t have any tools to optimize png/jpg images. Such as :
a. www.jpegmini.com
b. www.tinypng.com
If your server does not server support mod_deflate and mod_gzip you can use the below php code at the top of your headers file.
<?php
if ( substr_count( $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip' ) ) {
ob_start( "ob_gzhandler" );
}
else {
ob_start();
}
?>4. ET Tags
ETags (Entity Tags) are a mechanism that web servers and browsers use to determine if the component in the browser’s cache matches the original server.
To disable entity tags:
<FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)(\.gz)?$">
Header unset ETag
FileETag None
</FilesMatch>5. Browser Caching
With browser caching, we’re instructing browsers to hold particular files for a specified period of time. So, when the file is needed again, the browser pulls from its local cache instead of requesting it from the server again.
– Add Expire Headers
– Add Cache Control Headers
# BEGIN Cache-Control Headers
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
<filesMatch "\.(ico|jpe?g|png|gif|swf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "public"
</filesMatch>
<filesMatch "\.(css)$">
Header set Cache-Control "public"
</filesMatch>
<filesMatch "\.(js)$">
Header set Cache-Control "private"
</filesMatch>
<filesMatch "\.(x?html?|php)$">
Header set Cache-Control "private, must-revalidate"
</filesMatch>
</ifModule>
# END Cache-Control Headers**Note: Above website performance stats can be further optimized by using CDNs for images/css/js and by using minified javascript and css.
Related: Avoid 5 Common Website Development Mistakes
Importance of Website Performance Optimization
Here are eight reasons why website performance optimization is important:
1. Improved User Experience
A fast and responsive website can improve the user experience and lead to increased user engagement, reduced bounce rates, and higher conversions.
2. Higher Search Engine Rankings
Search engines consider website speed and performance as a ranking factor. A fast website can help improve search engine rankings and increase organic traffic.
3. Reduced Page Load Times
By optimizing website performance, you can reduce page load times, which can lead to improved website metrics such as time on page, page views, and conversion rates.
4. Lower Bounce Rates
A slow website can increase bounce rates, as users may leave your website if it takes too long to load. By optimizing website performance, you can reduce bounce rates and keep users engaged.
5. Increased Pageviews
Fast-loading websites tend to have more page views, as users are more likely to click through to additional pages on a website that loads quickly.
6. Improved Mobile Experience
Mobile devices often have slower internet speeds, and a fast-loading website can provide a better mobile user experience.
7. Reduced Hosting Costs
Optimizing website performance can help reduce server load and resource usage, resulting in lower hosting costs.
8. Lower Carbon Footprint
By reducing server load and resource usage, website performance optimization can contribute to a lower carbon footprint, making it an environmentally friendly option.
Also read: The Future of Website Development: Emerging Trends and Technologies
Conclusion
Website performance optimization is critical for providing a fast and responsive website for users. The techniques and tools discussed in this article can help you optimize your website’s performance, resulting in improved user experience and higher conversions.
Remember to measure your website’s performance regularly and make necessary optimizations to keep your website fast and efficient.
