5 Areas of Focus for a Website Speed
However, improving website speed can be frustrating because there are a lot of moving pieces. On top of that, when you don’t know what else to do to fix it, it can get downright depressing.
Onward!
1. Website Hosting
The first thing to do is check to make sure that you have a web host. Not sure if you have one or not? Well, web hosting isn’t free, and it’s usually a separate fee vs. your annual domain renewal.
Side note: you can utilize web hosts to buy and renew your domain names—no need to have separate services. Web hosts also offer additional security features, easy-to-use plugins, varying server options, customer support when your website is down, and more! Two popular web hosts are Bluehost and GreenGeeks. Ever hear of them?
With a little research and knowing what to look for, you should be able to find a great deal.
2. Cache Memory
Cache memory is one of the fastest types of auxiliary memory out here! Why does that matter? Well, it’s super beneficial when it comes to loading a website. Using cache to load your site can decrease loading times up to 300%, which is huge and can also save you on bandwidth!
Many small business owners overlook cache memory for apparent reasons. All jokes aside, if you need to fix cache memory, you’ll either need to code a bit, possibly adjust some things in your site’s Cpanel, or do it with a plugin. How do you access the Cpanel? Well, if you don’t have a host, then you…can’t?
3. Image Optimization
If you’re a first-time reader, you’ve probably noticed that we mention image optimization quite a bit, and for a good reason! Images have the potential to take up A LOT of data on your site before they are optimized. Why does that matter? They can slow down your website significantly and, well, unnecessarily if you don’t optimize them!
For example, having to load images that use up 500kb (P.S. pictures taken with mobile devices can easily exceed 2.5MB!) of data slow things down independently. Also, having multiple images on a single page adds to lag.
So what can you do? Well, manually resizing images can take a while, depending on how many you have to do. The better option is to use a plugin like Smush Image Compression and Optimization. It simplifies everything and can save you a lot of time!
4. Content Delivery Network
Using Content Delivery Networks (also known as CDNs) are becoming super popular (and extremely necessary) for any website! If you sell online, offer tons of content that anyone can use, have a brick-and-mortar company, or even entirely remote, you need a CDN! Why? Because you want to deliver content to viewers at a consistent speed, no matter where they live.
And they also help with SEO. How so? They improve website speed, which is an SEO factor!
So how do CDNs work?
In general, a CDN service has multiple servers distributed throughout the world. Those servers then communicate with your web host to keep the site’s content up-to-date. Then when someone visits your site (no matter where they live), your site loads quicker because it pulls the data from the nearest CDN server.
5. Optimize JavaScript, CSS, and HTML
Many people lack experience with programming, even if they have a website. And guess what? Lots of those sites do just fine! Nowadays, we have tons of testing tools to help us with coding. No longer are the days where you have to memorize dictionary-size amounts of code and then frantically type it all out before you forget. That’s not how it works anyway! Except for maybe in…Hollywood?
Here are a couple of options:
- Manually go through all of your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files and remove unnecessary characters (such as line breaks and white space.)
- Combine files to lower the number of server requests. (NOT recommended if you aren’t familiar with programming since it could break your site.)
- Enable minification on your CDN! It might take a little time for your CDN to cache the data (depends on your web host’s servers). However, it’s way easier and A LOT less time-consuming than the manual route.
- If you don’t have a CDN, use plugins or add-ons within your content management system (WordPress, etc.). If this is the case, you can use WP Fastest Cache or Autoptimize to help minify (remove unnecessary data) from your code.
Final Thoughts
Your site’s speed is essential when it comes to website optimization, SEO, and online success. The key to keep in mind is always to provide a good user-experience when optimizing.
Side note: You don’t have to use all of these techniques to make your website run faster. However, the most significant improvements will most likely come from cache, image optimization, and using a CDN.
