11 Effective Methods To Increase Page Speed
Google’s mobile-first index is still being developed. When it’s life, the speed of pages is expected to be among the most important ranking factors in mobile searches. If you’re still not making your website more efficient, it’s time to get it done! Most of us are conscious of checking the website through page speed insights, creating AMP pages, and implementing DNS; therefore, I won’t go into the basics of methods to speed up your website.
There are a few little-known strategies that you can use to increase the speed of your website, unlike anything else:
Avoid Nesting Your Tables instead, you can use floats or grids.
When coding a website, it’s important to keep speed in mind. Visitors to your site are looking for information, and they want it quickly. One way to help ensure that your website loads quickly is to avoid nesting tables. Tables are website code that are used to display information in rows and columns. When you nest a table, you’re essentially embedding one table inside of another. This could significantly slow down your website because the browser must render each nested table before moving on to the next. Instead of nesting tables, you can use floats or grids. These types of code are much less resource-intensive, and they can help to ensure that your website loads quickly and efficiently.
Instead of using a nested table, you can make use of non-nested tables. Furthermore, you can use grids and floats to increase your HTML load speed. Floats allow you to render images alongside the text blocks in a more efficient way. Grids will also enable you to design contemporary site layouts by using CSS to make grids. Learn how to create floating grids or grids on Mozilla’s site.
Add pagination to the comments section.
Including an area for comments on the website is essential to initiate an ongoing discussion. We often overlook that the process of loading hundreds of comments on a website with a lot of traffic will undoubtedly cause numerous loading problems.
To correct this issue, I suggest you make pagination available in the comments section on your site. If you have a WordPress blog, go to the Settings section and check the box that reads “break the comments in pages.”.
Update to PHP 7.1
The programming language used to create the website is one of the most significant elements in website page speed. Outdated programming languages can result in slow page loading times, which can frustrate visitors and cause them to leave the site. Updating your programming language is essential for making sure your website functions optimally.The latest version of PHP is 7.1, which offers significant improvements over older versions. With faster website page speeds, PHP 7.1 can help you keep your visitors happy and improve your bottom line. Contact your website developer today to discuss upgrading to PHP 7.1.
It’s not easy to maintain a constant upgrade of your website each time a new version is released, but I assure you it’s essential. The most recent versions of the software are quicker than previous versions, which is why it’s logical to upgrade to the latest version.
Look at the table below for comparisons between the various PHP versions. It shows that the script was 26% faster when using PHP 7.1 than in the earlier version (you can take a look at the study’s original findings below).
Set up the WordPress Rocket plugin.
If your site is on WordPress, the first step is to download WP Rocket extension. It is a plugin that automatically minimizes HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. It allows caching of browsers and pages, as well as lazy loading and database optimization.
A website’s speed is important for a number of reasons.
- First, faster websites tend to rank higher in search engine results.
- Second, visitors are less likely to get frustrated and leave a website that loads quickly.
- Finally, fast website page speeds can help to improve conversion rates.
The WordPress Rocket plugin is designed to help users improve their website’s speed. The plugin contains a number of features that can help to optimize website performance, including caching, minification, and lazy loading. WordPress Rocket can be installed directly from the WordPress plugin repository. Once installed, users can activate the plugin and begin configuring its settings. With WordPress Rocket, website owners can take steps to improve their website’s speed and performance.
A test carried out by CodeinWP revealed that WP Rocket was able to decrease the website’s loading time by about 65 percent. Impressive, isn’t it?
Use a trailing slash when pointing to your website.
Jeremy Knauff has wonderfully explained the significance of using a trailing slash at the end of links that link to your site.
When creating a website, it’s important to pay attention to the details because they can significantly affect how well it works. One often-overlooked detail is the trailing slash at the end of website URLs. Although it might not seem important, whether you include or exclude this slash can significantly affect how quickly your website loads. Pages with a trailing slash take longer to load, because the server has to first check whether the page exists before redirecting to the correct URL. This extra step can add up, especially on large websites with tens of thousands of pages. As a result, it’s always best to use a trailing slash when pointing to your website. Not only will this improve your website page speed, but it will also make it more consistent and easier for users to remember.
The explanation is fairly straightforward: if you omit the slash, the server looks for a file with that name and does an unnecessary redirect to 301. When it is unable to find one, it looks for a suitable directory. Performance suffers as a result of the stress this places on the server.
- https://mysite.com (URL without the trailing slash “not suggested”)
Vs
- https://example.comhttp://example.com (URL with an apostrophe trailing it-“recommended”)
Reduce the size of the content above the fold.
Reduce the number of round trips to the network to load the content above your website’s fold.
Initial congestion windows are around 14.6 KB (compressed). In addition, if your page size is larger than the window, you will experience a loading delay.
Now you must decide how you will accomplish this.
The solution is to let the content above-the-fold load first by altering the loading sequence. For instance, if your HTML loads widgets from third parties, modify this code to load your main first. Reduce resources by removing any unnecessary whitespaces or comments. Instead of loading the page first, let the HTML for the body of content to load first—an initial item. Additionally, enable compression and look into using CSS instead of images.
Clean Up the Quantity of Visual Content You Have on a Single Page
It’s not a great choice to add a lot of visual content, such as multiple videos or gifs, since this could cause a slowdown in the loading website page speed.
Look at the homepage of Google News; the site has small photos (all optimized), videos, and links; a simple layout; and a clean interface.
Instead of having a lot of information on one webpage, Google News is one of the top five most efficient media websites.
Do not allow hotlinks
Hotlinking occurs when another website makes use of an image that is stored on the server. This is highly wasted bandwidth and results in slow loading times because the server is busy processing numerous requests.
You can stop hotlinking by adding a tiny piece of code to the.htaccess file. Here’s an example of code:
RewriteEngine onRewriteCond % !^$RewriteCond % !http://www.example.com/ *$ [NC]RewriteRule \. (gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp|zip|rar|mp3|flv|swf|xml|php|png|css|pdf)$ – [F]
You can design your code based on the domains you would like hotlinks to be allowed for. The access tool can create a custom code according to your specific requirements.
Complete the WebPage Test
A web page test is among the most effective methods to detect the root of any issues with your website page speed. Enter the domain that you want to be evaluated. This tool will offer a grade on the following factors that affect the site’s speed:
- Time To The First Byte (TTFB) measures the rate at which the server responds.
- Use of the keep-alive option (persistent link) in the HTTP header
- Utilization to compress Gzip.
- Utilization of image compression.
- Making use of browser caching for static assets.
- Effective utilization of CDN.
Here’s a screenshot of the WebpageTest that is available for Amazon.com. Note the scores in yellow and green. The test gives you complete information you can provide to your development team to enhance your site’s speed to the highest levels.
Make sure CSS is on the top and JavaScript on the bottom.
Don’t add CSS between the pages since this will increase the browser’s workload and slows down the website page speed. Make sure to add CSS files to the top of the page since this can stop progressive rendering and save many resources (see examples of the code in this article).
Furthermore, you should add that you can add Javascript code to the bottom of your webpage just before the body tag closes to have your website page speed faster since the browser doesn’t have to wait for the complete execution of the code before loading.
Discard Unused Media.
This is among the most under-appreciated strategies in terms of improving loading times.
Your server may be hosting many images that you’re no longer using. It is essential to delete these images and make them.
If you are a WordPress customer, as Darcy Wheeler suggests, you click Add Media-> Media Library Unattached. Then remove the files that are not in use anymore.
They were simple! right?
Please don’t spend the time blaming your developers for slowing down your site. Have a meeting, drink some coffee, and discuss the tips above with your staff. Once they are implemented, these techniques will accelerate your website as never before.
Have you recently tried any new techniques to increase the speed of your website? Please provide your feedback in the box below.
Contact D’Marketing Agency
At D’Marketing Agency, we understand the importance of website speed and its impact on SEO. That’s why we offer a variety of services to help increase your page speed, including web design and development, content creation, and online marketing. We also utilize the latest technologies and trends to ensure that your website is not only visually appealing but also performs well under pressure.
Contact D’Marketing Agency today for a FREE site consultation about how we can help you improve your website speed and drive more traffic to your site!
