Fast loading websites always gets high credit in Google search results than website takes more time to load. Even to please website visitors and to make them visit again, it is necessary to present them with website which loads within 2 to 3 seconds otherwise you may lose them forever.
Below you will see handy list of website optimization tips we have put together.
Target Area
Following are the some useful online free tools that will provide you a broader perspective and better analyzation to help you in website speed optimization.
- GTmetrix | Website Speed and Performance Optimization
- PageSpeed Tools
- YSlow
- Pingdom Tools – Website Speed Test
Specify Image Dimensions
Specifying a width and height for all images allows for faster rendering
<img src=”image.jpg” />
<img src=”image.jpg” width=”200″ height=”200″ />
Optimize Images
- Reduce file sizes based on where images will be displayed.
- Resize image files themeselves instead of via CSS.
- Save files in appropriate format depending on usage.
Combine Images (Sprites Images)
Combining images into as few files as possible using CSS sprites. It will help reduce the number of round-trips and delays in downloading other resources.
Serve Scaled Images
Properly sizing images can save many bytes of data.
Minify CSS
It will help to save many bytes of data and speed up downloading, parsing, and execution time.
Inline Small CSS
Inlining small external CSS files can save the overhead of fetching these small files. A good alternative to inline CSS is to combine the external CSS files.
Order Of Styles And Scripts
Correctly ordering external stylesheets and external and inline scripts enables better parallelization of downloads and speeds up browser rendering time.
Put CSS In The Document Head
Moving inline style blocks and <link> elements from the document body to the document head improves rendering performance.
Avoid CSS @import
Using CSS @import in an external stylesheet can add additional delays during the loading of a web page.
@import url(“fineprint.css”)
Minify JavaScript
It will help to save many bytes of data and speed up downloading, parsing, and execution time.
Inline small JavaScript
Inlining small external JavaScript files can save the overhead of fetching these small files. A good alternative to inline JavaScript is to combine the external JavaScript files.
Defer Parsing of JavaScript
You can reduce the initial load time of your page by using defer or async attributes.
<script type=’text/javascript’ defer >
// Code here
</script>
<script type=’text/javascript’ async >
// Code here
</script>
Minify HTML
It will help to save many bytes of data and speed up downloading, parsing, and execution time.
Leverage Browser Caching
Reduce page load times for repeat visitors. Particularly effective on websites where users regularly re-visit the same areas (pages) of the website.
Leverage Browser Caching Code
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/html “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access 1 year”
ExpiresDefault “access 1 month”
</IfModule>
Enable gzip compression
This will help reduce sizes of pages up to 70% and increase loading speed.
Enable gzip compression code
<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>
Avoid Bad Requests
Removing “broken links”, or requests that result in 404/410 errors, avoids wasteful requests.
Avoid Landing Page Redirects
- example.com uses responsive web design, no redirects are needed – fast and optimal!
- example.com → m.example.com/home – multi-roundtrip penalty for mobile users
- example.com → www.example.com → m.example.com – very slow mobile experience
Remove Query Strings Static Content
<link rel=’stylesheet’ id=’contact-form-7-css’ href=’http://developmentbox.co/office-squared-optimize/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/includes/css/styles.css?ver=4.1.1′ type=’text/css’ media=’all’ />
<link rel=’stylesheet’ id=’office-squared-style-css’ href=’http://developmentbox.co/office-squared-optimize/wp-content/themes/office-squared/style.css?ver=4.1.1′ type=’text/css’ media=’all’ />
Serve Resources From A Consistent URL
It’s important to serve a resource from a unique URL, to eliminate duplicate download bytes and additional RTTs (Round Trip Time).
Specify A Character Set Early
Define the character set being used at the server for all pages.
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8