Helpful Tips to Speed Up Your Website

Compression

Good image compression will make images lighter and more web-friendly. In many cases, high-resolution print-quality photos don't look better on websites, because standard HD screens display graphics at a lower pixel density then you print. Take a look at the two images below as an example. The left image was 197KB when uploaded, while the one on the right was 70KB (65% smaller). Can you see any difference between the two? I can't.

Uncompressed (197KB) Compressed (70KB)

Source: developers.hubspot.com

Minify CSS and JavaScript files

Minifying code means removing anything that a computer doesn't need in order to understand and carry out the code, including code comments, whitespace, and unnecessary semicolons. This makes CSS and JavaScript files slightly smaller so that they load faster in the browser and take up less bandwidth. On its own, minification will result in only minimal speed improvements. However, implemented along with these other tips, it will result in better website performance.

Source: cloudflare.com

Use a good theme (if using WordPress)

Prevention is usually a better strategy than cure. To prevent lots of page speed issues in the first place, you should opt for a good host, a good CDN, and good theme/design.

As a digital marketer, it’s frustrating when web designers build sites that look beautiful but perform terribly from an SEO perspective or a speed perspective. I remember once having to deliver news to a client who spent a quarter of a million pounds on a new website, only to have it scrapped because it would have obliterated their digital marketing efforts. This is the most extreme example I’ve ever experienced, but it’s etched a scar that I’ll always remember.

Today, the problem is neither better nor worse than it was five years ago. Back when I started doing SEO, designers still used flash and other primitive technologies to build sites. Today, designers built WordPress themes with so many bells and whistles that it’s no wonder they take 10 seconds to load.

Source: ventureharbour.com

The 10 Plugin Rule

Lets keep this simple, adding too many plugins to your WordPress website will slow it down.

If your website is on shared hosting, you should stay under 10 plugins. Quite frankly, if you are adding too many plugins your site will have more problems than it will solve.

Think of your website like a car and plugins are weights. The more weights you have on the car, the slower the car will run. This is the same example with WordPress plugins.

As you can see, plugins that load a lot of javascript like the slider revolution and GTM plugin are adding weight to the page.

Security plugins for WordPress WILL slow down your website. I have seen security plugins overload servers and just put too much strain on them. I would avoid security plugins.

Source: darrelwilson.com

Add A Caching Plugin

What does a caching plugin actually do?

A caching plugin create static HTML version of your pages from your website and saves it on your web hosting server. Every time someone visits your website, your caching plugin create a “replicated version” of your website with an HTML page instead of processing the comparatively heavier WordPress PHP scripts. In short, it creates copies of your websites so your server does not have to load your website for every single visitor.

I personally use wp-rocket on this website. It not only helps cache my website, but minimizes CSS and Java. It also offers lazy load to help reduce the strain on my server. You can buy it here.

Help your website relax and get a caching plugin.

Source: darrelwilson.com

Delete Unused Plugins and Themes

Aside from the fact that you should always keep your plugins and themes up to date, deleting unused ones is the next step to a speedy site. Not only do unused plugins and themes present security vulnerabilities, but they can also detract from WordPress site performance.

To delete unused plugin, you’ll first need to deactivate it. Then you can go to your inactive plugins list and delete the ones you no longer want.

To clean up plugins on a multisite network, see this useful article.

To remove unwanted themes, simply go to Appearance > Themes to delete the ones no longer in use.

Source: wpengine.com

Fix all broken links

Broken links are not only a drain on bandwidth, but they’re also one of the surest ways to get a user to leave your site. One of our clients recently had several hundred 404 errors showing in Google Webmaster Tools. After fixing all of these, the average pages visited per user increased from 1.4 to 1.85 pages/visit, and there was a noticeable decrease in bounce rate.

If page speed isn’t compelling enough a reason to fix your broken links, hopefully the impact on these behavioral metrics is.

To identify your broken links, I’d recommend using the following (free) tools:

Google Webmaster Tools (crawl errors tab)

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Ahrefs

The reason why I recommend using all three, is because some will go deeper than others and identify crawl errors that others don’t. Once you’ve reached 0 broken links on all three tools, your job is done!

Source: ventureharbour.com

Final Thoughts: Faster Websites Keep Everyone Happy

Broadband speeds today, even on mobile, have increased by so much and will be increasing even more. That means that there is very little excuse left for website owners to have their visitors put up with slow loading sites.

Believe me, you'll keep losing visitors and at one point, gain such a bad reputation that you'll be known as “Oh, THAT website”. If you're in an online business , that makes it even worse since you'll be killing your own golden goose.

Speed up your website today and retain your customers or visitors.

Don't end up as THAT website.

Source: webhostingsecretrevealed.net