10 Effective Practices to Speed Up Your Website

A website is the most important impression of your business for many customers. In fact, according to a study by Google, nearly half of all web users expect a website to load in two seconds, and they almost tend to abandon a site that loads within three seconds. So if your website could be faster, you could lose out on potential customers. Speed is the most significant factor for a website. A minor delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. Also, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. If the page takes longer than 3 to 4 seconds to load, 40% of people will abandon the site. Undoubtedly, website speed is crucial to the success of any online business. Here are some effective practices to speed up your website:

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers (network) that deliver pages and other important Web content to a user based on the user's geographic locations, the webpage's origin, and the content delivery server. CDNs are a good way to improve website speed because they shorten the distance between the visitor and your content. It's important to choose a reputable CDN provider, such as Cloudflare, Incapsula, or Amazon CloudFront. It helps to ensure that your website's content is delivered quickly and reliably. One downside of using a CDN is that it can be expensive.?

Minimize HTTP Requests

An HTTP request is made every time a browser fetches a file from a server. This includes not only image files but also CSS and JavaScript files. The more files your webpage has to load, the longer it will take. You can minimize HTTP requests by using CSS sprites and combining your CSS and JavaScript files. It is also a good idea to load files asynchronously. A content delivery network (CDN) can also help reduce HTTP requests. By minimizing HTTP requests, you can significantly speed up your website.

Compress Your Files

One way to speed up your website is to compress your files. This includes both your HTML and CSS files. There are numerous ways to compress your files, but one of the easiest is to use an online tool such as MinifyCode. Upload your files and choose whether to compress them for JavaScript, CSS, or HTML. The compressed files will be downloaded to your computer. Compressing the file size can help reduce the time it takes for your website to load. It also helps reduce the amount of bandwidth used.

Optimize Your Images

Images are usually the largest files on a webpage and, thus, can significantly slow down your website if they need to be properly optimized. Image optimization involves reducing the file size of your images without compromising their quality. There are many ways to optimize images, including using an image compression tool such as TinyPNG.?

Optimizing your images can significantly improve your website's speed. It also helps to improve your SEO since Google considers page speed when ranking websites.

Reduce the Number of Plugins You Use

With WordPress, the chances are you have many plugins installed. While plugins can add much functionality to your website, they can also slow it down. This is because each plugin adds another HTTP request, which can add up and slow things down.

To combat this, only install the plugins you need. If you are using a plugin for something that could be done with a few lines of code, consider doing it without the plugin. This will help reduce the number of HTTP requests and speed up your website.

Use a Caching Plugin

A caching plugin stores static copies of your website's pages and files. This means the server doesn't have to generate a new page whenever someone visits your site. As a result, your website will load much faster. Some popular caching plugins are W3 Total Cache and WP Rocket. It also helps to set up a content delivery network (CDN). A CDN stores copies of your website's files on multiple servers worldwide. When someone visits your site, they will be served the file from the server closest to them, which should help improve loading times.

Use Cookie-Free Domain

Cookies are small data stored on visitors' computers when they visit a website. These cookies can be used for various purposes, such as storing preferences and tracking user behavior. However, they can also slow down your website if they need to be properly configured. The cookie-free domain is a term that describes websites that do not set any cookies. By not setting any cookies, your website will be able to load faster, as there will be no need to send and receive cookie data. Using a cookie-free domain is one of the best practices to speed up your website.

Configure Etags

E-tags determine whether or not a browser should request a specific file from the server. If the file has been modified since the last time it was requested, the browser will request the new version of the file. However, if the file has not been modified, the browser can load the cached version of the file, which will be faster. One way to configure Etags is to set the expiration date to a far future date. This will ensure that the browser will not request the file again unless it has been modified.

Put Scripts at the Bottom

Scripts can sometimes be render-blocking, meaning that the browser cannot continue loading the page until the script has been processed. By placing scripts at the bottom of the page, you can ensure that the rest of the page will load first and the script will only load when needed. They can also be placed in an external file and loaded asynchronously with the async attribute. It also helps to minify and compress your scripts to reduce their size and load time.

Load Assets Asynchronously

Assets such as images, CSS files, and JavaScript files can all be loaded asynchronously so that they do not block the loading of the rest of the page. This can be done with scripts' async attributes and stylesheets' defer attributes. You can also use an asynchronous JavaScript loader such as LazyLoad or LoadJS to load other assets such as images. Load assets asynchronously to improve your page's load time and get your content to your users faster. It's also a good idea to optimize your images, which you can learn more about in our guide on optimizing images for the web.

On a Final Note!

Websites are the need of every business in this digital world. A website is the identity of your business. To stay in the market, you must have a fast-loading website. The speed of your website matters a lot because it is the key factor that decides whether a user will stay on your site. No one wants to wait for a slow website to load. So, if you want to improve your website speed, follow the above tips. They will help you speed up your website and improve its performance.