How to improve your website’s performance

The speed and performance of a website is crucial for online success. Not only does it affect the user experience, but it also influences search engine rankings and conversion rates.

If you have a website and you want it to perform as well as possible, this article is for you. Here we will explain in a simple and clear way how to improve the performance of your website.

12 tips to improve your website’s performance

1. Optimise your images

Images are often one of the main culprits of slow page loading. Here are some tips on how to optimise them:

• Reduce the size of images: Use tools such as Photoshop, TinyPNG or ImageOptim to reduce the size of your images without losing quality.
• Use appropriate formats: JPEG and PNG are the most common formats, but consider also WebP, which offers better compression without loss of quality.
• Lazy loading: Implements lazy loading so that images are loaded only when the user needs them, i.e. when they are about to be viewed.

➔ Here is a ranking of the best image compressors.

2. Leverage browser caching

Caching allows elements of your web page to be stored locally on the user’s device, which reduces loading time on future visits. To enable this, add expiry headers to your web server to specify how long files should be stored in the browser cache.

➔ Check out the best caching plugins for WordPress.

3. Minimise and combine CSS and JavaScript files

Each time a browser loads a web page, it requests multiple CSS and JavaScript files. Reducing the number of these files can significantly improve load time.

• Minimise files: Use tools such as UglifyJS for JavaScript and CSSNano for CSS, which remove whitespace, comments and other unnecessary characters.
• Combine files: Combine multiple CSS files into one and do the same with JavaScript to reduce the number of HTTP requests.

4. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN distributes your website content across multiple servers located in different parts of the world. This ensures that users access the server closest to them, which reduces load times. Popular CDNs include Cloudflare, Akamai and Amazon CloudFront.

5. Optimise server response time

Server response time is crucial to the speed of your website.

Here are some tips on how to improve it:

• Choose good hosting: Not all hosting services are the same. Opt for a provider that offers high speed and a good reputation.
• Use a fast web server: Servers such as Nginx and LiteSpeed are usually faster than Apache.
• Optimise your database: If you use a database, make sure it is well optimised. This includes proper indexing of tables and removal of unnecessary data.

6. Enables Gzip compression

Gzip is a compression technique that reduces the size of files sent from your server to the user’s browser. Most web servers can easily enable Gzip, which can significantly reduce your page load time.

7. Reduces initial loading time

The time it takes for the first view of your page to load is crucial.

Here are some ways to reduce this time:

• Preload essential resources: Use the tag to preload essential resources such as critical fonts and styles.
• Disable unnecessary plugins: If you use a CMS such as WordPress, disable and remove plugins that you are not using, as they can slow down your site.
• Optimise the HTML: Make sure your HTML is clean and well structured. Tools like HTMLMinifier can help you minimise HTML.

8. Implement AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

AMP is an open source project that allows you to create light and fast websites for mobile devices. Implementing AMP can significantly improve the performance of your website on mobile devices, which is crucial given the growing number of users accessing the internet from their smartphones.

9. Regularly monitor and test performance

To keep your website fast, it is important to monitor and test its performance on a regular basis.

Some useful tools for this are:

• Google PageSpeed Insights: It offers specific suggestions to improve the speed of your site..
• GTmetrix: It provides a detailed analysis of your website and recommendations.
• Pingdom Tools: Another excellent tool to analyse the speed of your site..

10. Use web fonts efficiently

Web fonts can significantly affect the performance of your site.

Here are some tips on how to manage them efficiently:

• Limit the number of fonts: Don’t use too many different fonts. Two or three should be enough for most sites.
• Choose modern formats: Use formats such as WOFF2, which are lighter.
• Preload the fonts: Use the tag mentioned above to preload the fonts and make sure they load quickly.

11. Implement the use of Service Workers

Service Workers are scripts that your browser runs in the background, separate from the web page. They can cache and retrieve network resources more efficiently, significantly improving the speed of your website.

12. Conducts a third-party audit

Sometimes third-party scripts can negatively affect the performance of your site. These include advertisements, social widgets and other embedded elements. Perform a regular audit of these scripts and remove any that are not essential.

Improving the performance of your website is an ongoing task that requires regular attention and adjustments. However, the benefits are enormous: a better user experience, improved search engine rankings and, ultimately, a higher conversion rate. At Doowebs, we help you keep your website fast and efficient. Remember that every second counts in the digital world, and a fast website can make all the difference in the success of your online project.