Boosting your website’s speed starts with a small amount of coding. Minimizing JavaScript and CSS files is an excellent start, and the process is referred to as minification. While minified code is not human-readable, it is still read by browsers. Smaller file sizes load faster than larger ones. Most optimized websites combine CSS and JavaScript files into a single bundle. Then, while the user navigates the site, the browser waits for the JavaScript to load. This is called synchronous loading, and the result is a faster website.
Less is more
Webpage performance is affected by many factors including the amount of traffic, the software server used, and how to improve website performance. Performance bottlenecks can also affect the response time, but the ideal is to have a response time under 200 milliseconds. For the fastest performance, consider implementing content delivery networks (CDNs), or a network of servers that share the load across multiple data centers. These techniques allow your site to load quickly, giving you an edge over your competitors.
Minimize CSS
A simple way to increase the speed of your site is to optimize the CSS and JavaScript on your website. These two components increase the size of your HTML document and need to be separated. It is easier to maintain and update external CSS and JavaScript files than to add them to your HTML document. The majority of page-loading time is spent downloading and rendering various components on the page. You can decrease the number of requests by optimizing the critical rendering path and using media queries.
Minimize JavaScript
Among website speed and performance optimization best practices, minification is essential to a website’s performance. This process shrinks the size of both CSS and JavaScript files. While minified code is not human-readable, it is readable by browsers. The smaller the file size, the faster it loads. Most optimized websites combine their JavaScript and CSS files into a single bundle. This allows the browser to load them more quickly by avoiding synchronous loading.
Reduce redirects
If you’re concerned with your website’s performance, you’re not alone. Redirects are a major cause of slow loading times. Browsers have to load multiple assets before the HTML can be rendered, doubling the load time of your webpage. Moreover, redirects impact the UX of your website. Fortunately, there are ways to decrease your website’s redirects and still maintain high-quality UX.
Minification
Minification is an important website speed and performance optimization best practice. It reduces the size of CSS and JavaScript files by stripping unnecessary white space, punctuation, and new line characters. Browsers read these smaller files much faster, so minification is an important website speed and performance optimization best practice. Most optimized websites combine their CSS and JavaScript files into one bundle, reducing the size of the script file.
Cloudflare
You can optimize your site to load faster with Cloudflare’s content delivery network. The CDN is a network of servers that re-direct visitors to nearby locations when your primary server goes offline. While CDNs can significantly increase your site’s speed, they are only helpful when your front and back end are optimized. By following the best practices described below, you can maximize your website’s speed and performance.
Optimole
A free Optimole account can be used to test and implement website speed and performance optimization best practices. This service is fully functional and is limited to 5,000 monthly visitors. However, free plans come with many additional features, including Amazon CloudFront CDN and responsive design. Optimole’s customer support team is available to answer questions within 48 hours. For more information, visit Optimole’s website.
More to read:
The Difference Between a Key Performance Indicator KPI and a Key Metrics
