Even if your website is well-optimized for SEO, its performance can significantly impact your online presence. Slow loading times, unresponsive design, and poor navigation can discourage visitors and harm your online business success.
In fact, 79% of shoppers experiencing site performance issues say they won’t return to the site for future purchases.
So, you must implement website performance optimization strategies to ensure your site reaches its full potential.
Let's delve into six crucial website performance optimization best practices that you can begin implementing today for a more impactful online presence.
What is website performance optimization?
Website performance optimization involves improving various aspects of a website to enhance its overall speed, responsiveness and efficiency.
This process typically involves strategies such as minimizing HTTP requests, optimizing images and videos, and implementing browser caching.
The main goal is to create a fast, efficient, and enjoyable user experience, which can lead to improved search engine rankings, increased user engagement, and higher conversion rates.
You can use many tools to analyze your website performance. This includes Google Analytics 4 and website speed optimization tools like Pingdom or Gtmetrix. The following is a sample of the reports that these tools may generate for you.
Optimizing website performance offers several advantages. Let’s discuss them in detail in the following section.
Why web performance optimization is essential
Website performance optimization is essential for several reasons:
User experience (UX)
When a website is optimized, users can enjoy a decreased overall load time. It’s worth noting that 83% of online users expect the websites they visit to load within three seconds or less.
Furthermore, a well-optimized website responds quickly to user interactions such as clicks, scrolls, and inputs. This responsiveness improves usability and offers a seamless browsing experience.
In other words, web performance optimization helps create a smoother and improved user experience.
Conversion rates
Since performance optimization leads to decreased loading times, it can boost conversion rates for actions such as completing purchases, signing up for newsletters, or filling out forms. Data shows that website conversion rates decrease by 4.42% for every second of load time between zero and five seconds.
Also, if users encounter a fast website that promptly responds to their inputs, they are more inclined to trust the site and carry out desired actions.
User retention
Websites with clear calls to action and easy navigation encourage users to stay on the page and interact with the content. Think with Google also says that the possibility of bounce rises by 32% when the page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds.
So, web optimization helps increase engagement, therefore boosting user retention.
Search rankings
As mentioned, a well-optimized website can enhance the user experience and reduce bounce rates. It can also improve mobile-friendliness and make content more accessible to search engine crawlers.
These key factors collectively contribute to better visibility and higher rankings in search engine results pages.
6 Effective website optimization strategies to implement
Here are six effective website optimization strategies you can implement to improve website performance:
1. Optimize images
Large, uncompressed images can significantly slow down page load times and make the navigation experience frustrating. That's because photos are often the heaviest element on a website.
After video content, photos account for an average of 21% of a webpage's overall weight.
So, you must balance achieving the smallest file size possible while maintaining an acceptable quality.
Generally speaking, you must consider two primary factors to reduce image size: The file format and the type of compression you use.
Choosing the right file format depends on your visual requirements and desired performance. However, certain formats can be more effective in improving website performance compared to others. These formats are:
- SVG for scalability and responsiveness
- PNG for icons, logos, and transparency.
- JPEG for realistic photos
All browsers support the above. Plus, they are more lightweight for the web.
As for image compression, there are two types:
- Lossy: It is a filter that removes specific data. That may impair the picture, but you just need to be cautious about how much you compress.
- Lossless: It is a data-compressing filter. It will keep the same image quality before and after the compression.
Lossy compression is the best choice to save storage space and improve webpage loading speed.You can use numerous tools like JPEGmini and TinyPNG to compress images. Alternatively, employ applications such as Affinity Photo and Adobe Photoshop. These apps come with built-in compressing capabilities.
If you have numerous images to compress, batch-processing features in these applications can save you time and effort. You can also use bulk image downloaders to quickly download and compress multiple images at once.
Remember to add meaningful ALT text (alternative text) to the images. This will enhance accessibility and assist search engines in understanding your image.
2. Use a content delivery network (CDN)
A Content Distribution Network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers placed strategically throughout geographic sites to deliver online content effectively. When a user searches a website for content, the CDN directs the request to the closest dedicated server in its network.
Here’s how CDN works.
This minimizes latency–or the amount of time it takes for data to go from one place to another– and results in faster loading times.
So, choose the CDN provider that best suits your website's requirements. Consider regional coverage, affordability, performance, security features, and the ability to integrate with your current infrastructure.
Here’s a table that compares the top CDNs to give you an overview:
After deciding on a CDN provider, follow the instructions to integrate it into your website. This usually involves:
- Registering your website with the CDN provider.
- Configuring DNS settings to point your domain to the CDN.
- Implementing CDN-specific configurations or plugins (if provided) on your web server or content management system (CMS).
However, ensure the CDN serves all static assets, including images, videos, CSS, and JavaScript files.
Additionally, check that your CDN is compatible with HTTP/2. That enhances the efficacy of data transmission between servers and clients.
3. Reduce server response time
The server response time is the time a device takes to obtain a response from a server following an HTTP request.
Many variables impact server response time. They include low-cost web hosting, delayed database queries and routing, restricted network capacity, and uncached pages and data.
Choose a dedicated hosting solution. Smaller websites that have limited budgets can look at shared hosting options such as Bluehost instead. If Bluehost doesn’t work for them, they may compare Bluehost alternatives. These hosting providers offer competitive pricing and a variety of features to suit different needs. Here’s a table comparing them:
Additionally, ensure your server-side code is well-organized and efficient. This entails optimizing codes, minimizing database queries, and employing suitable data structures. You may need to hire a web developer for this purpose.
If your website is built on WordPress, select an ideal theme. WordPress themes may include a variety of JavaScript and PHP scripts, which, if not optimized, can significantly increase your server response time. So, before installing any theme, read reviews to ensure it doesn’t do this.
Finally, optimize database requests. Most modern CMSs provide a straightforward method for this. For instance, WordPress provides a range of plugins, such as WP-Optimize, which make it simple to carry out this task.
4. Enable browser caching
Browser caching is a technique by which web browsers locally store static files, including HTML pages, CSS files, image files, JS files, and more, on a user's device after the first visit to a website.
This enables quicker loading during future visits to the same page. That’s because the browser may obtain these resources from the local cache instead of making another call to the web server. Here’s an illustration:
Browser caching operates by incorporating an additional header into the HTTP response that specifies the time and date.
So, to enable browser caching, you can edit the .htaccess file. You may do this by using FTP software like FileZilla or the file manager included in your web hosting control panel.
You will need to include two headers in your HTTP responses.
The first one is Cache-Control, which defines the duration and location for file caching. Here’s an example of a Cache-Control code.
The second one is Expires, which notifies the browser about the period during which the cached file remains valid. Here’s an example of this:
The method for incorporating these codes is dependent on the server. Therefore, you must be an advanced user or hire a web developer.
When working with WordPress, plugins are the best option, particularly if you're not confident editing the server files directly. These plugins will take care of the technical work for you and may also help optimize your website in other ways.
However, make sure your web server allows caching plugins before installing them.
Many hosting companies, particularly managed WordPress sites, disallow cache and certain plugins because they are incompatible with the server settings. Browser caching is likely enabled in these circumstances. So, contact your hosting support for WordPress caching questions.
5. Reduce HTTP requests
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) requests are tools web browsers use to communicate with web servers to request the necessary resources for displaying web pages.
When a user visits a web page, the browser makes HTTP requests to the server to get resources such as HTML files, CSS stylesheets, videos, fonts, and other assets required to display the page.
So, reducing HTTP requests lowers load times and server load, boosting website performance.
However, you must understand the number of HTTP requests your website receives before you can reduce them.
You can use many tools to determine this number. For instance, HubSpot's Website Grader provides a “health check” tool that allows you to see how many requests your site is receiving. You may also utilize the developer tools that come with your browser, like Chrome's DevTools.
Following the screening of your HTTP requests, you may take the following steps to reduce their number:
- Remove or replace unnecessary plugins: Identify and uninstall any plugins you’re not using. Also, review the plugins you use and switch to less heavy alternatives where possible.
- Remove unnecessary videos or photos: Delete images that don’t enhance the content such as blog posts as each image produces an HTTP request. Similarly, only retain videos that provide value to the page.
- Enable lazy load: Utilize a plug-in that enables images and videos to load when a user scrolls down the page.
- Use website caching: Optimize your site for content caching. We've talked about this previously.
- Reduce third-party requests: Minimize the inclusion of content that relies on third-party sources. For example, a website that includes a YouTube video on its page will require the visitor's browser to make a third-party request to YouTube's servers to retrieve the video content.
Remember to regularly test your website's performance whenever you implement these strategies. That will help avoid negative effects on your website's operation or user experience.
6. Enable Gzip compression
Gzip compression entails reducing file sizes to improve internet transmission speed.
When you compress a file using the Gzip technique, you decrease the file size without harming any data, improving your site’s load time. According to Hostinger, Gzip can reduce the size of small text-based data files by around 70% and up to 90% for larger files.
There are free websites, such as Sitechecker, that can help you check if Gzip is enabled. Simply paste the URL of a webpage and view the results.
Some of these websites will also provide a short report explaining the reduction in file size achieved by Gzip. Here is an example.
Since Gzip compression happens on the web server, the configuration process will depend on your hosting provider and server architecture.
Enabling Gzip on a WordPress website can be easily done by installing a plugin like WP-Optimize Cache and Hummingbird. It is a safer and simpler method compared to manually modifying the .htaccess file.
In closing
Website performance optimization is key to your business’ success. Website performance directly affects customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and the achievement of overhead business objectives. It plays a crucial role in establishing a positive online presence.
You learned website performance optimization strategies to use. Image optimization, using a content delivery network, reducing server response time, enabling browser caching, implementing Gzip compression, and minimizing HTTP requests can all improve website speed and overall efficiency.
Now go ahead and implement these tips to reap the benefits.
